The scents which permeate our health spas from aromatic essential oils may provide more benefits than just a sense of rest and well-being. For according to a new study the essential oils which form the basis of aromatherapy for stress relief are also reported to have a beneficial effect on heart rate and blood pressure following short-term exposure – and may therefore reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease. However, on the downside, those beneficial effects were reversed when exposure to essential oils lasted more than an hour.
The study was performed in men and women working in various spa centres in the city of Taipei in Taiwan, where the traditions of ancient Chinese civilisations are maintained in religious ceremonies and healing therapies. Aromatherapy, as practised today, is still presented as natural healing with essential oils extracted by infusion from aromatic plants.
One hundred young, healthy non-smoking spa workers taking part in the study visited the study centre on three occasions (about once a week), when each volunteer was exposed to vapours of essential oils released from an ultrasonic ioniser for two hours. During this time and on each visit three repeated measurements
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The diagnostic system used by many mental health practitioners in the United States
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Tufts University School of Engineering researchers have demonstrated silk-based implantable optics that offer significant improvement in tissue imaging while simultaneously enabling photo thermal therapy, administering drugs and monitoring drug delivery. The devices also lend themselves to a variety of other biomedical functions.
Biodegradable and biocompatible, these tiny mirror-like devices dissolve harmlessly at predetermined rates and require no surgery to remove them.
The technology is the brainchild of a research team led by Fiorenzo Omenetto, Frank C. Doble Professor of Engineering at Tufts. For several years, Omenetto; David L. Kaplan, Stern Family Professor of Biomedical Engineering and Biomedical Engineering chair, and their colleagues have been exploring ways to leverage silk’s optical capabilities with its capacity as a resilient, biofriendly material that can stabilise materials while maintaining their biochemical functionality.
‘This work showcases the potential of silk to bring together form and function. In this case an implantable optical form — the mirror — can go beyond imaging to serve multiple biomedical functions,’ Omenetto says.
To create the optical devices, the Tufts bioengineers poured a purified silk protein solution into moulds of multiple micro-sized prism reflectors, or microprism arrays (MPAs). They pre-determined the rates at which the devices would dissolve in the body by regulating the water content of the solution during processing. The cast solution was then air dried to form solid silk films in the form of the mould. The resulting silk sheets were much like the reflective tape found on safety garments or on traffic signs.
When implanted, these MPAs reflected back photons that are ordinarily lost with reflection-based imaging technologies, thereby enhancing imaging, even in deep tissue.
The researchers tested the devices using solid and liquid ‘phantoms’ (materials that mimic the scattering that occurs when light passes through human tissue). The tiny mirror-like devices reflected substantially stronger optical signals than implanted silk films that had not been formed as MPAs.
The Tufts researchers also demonstrated the silk mirrors
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Amid increasing fear of overexposure to radiation from CT scans, a panel of experts has recommended more research on the health effects of medical imaging and ways to reduce unnecessary CT tests, as well as industry standardisation of CT machines.
The recommendations were developed at the Radiation Dose Summit, organised by the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (NIBIB). The summit included more than 100 medical physicists, radiologists, cardiologists, engineers, industry representatives and patient advocates. The proceedings, held in Bethesda, MD in early 2011, covered currently understood risks of radiation exposure from CT scans, set priorities for future research, and called for changes to industry practices.
‘The number of CT exams in the U.S. has increased by about 10 percent each year over the past decade,’ said John Boone, UC Davis professor of radiology and lead author of the Radiology article. ‘This trend underscores the importance of developing a better understanding of the health risks of radiation exposure versus the benefits of enhanced diagnosis.’
The experts conceded that despite widespread public concern about radiation risks, the biologic effects from medical imaging tests are not entirely understood. Most direct evidence comes from the effects of instantaneous, high-dose, whole-body exposures due to industrial accidents and from survivors of the atomic bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Whether these findings can be extrapolated to people exposed to occasional and much smaller dosages applied to only parts of the body is uncertain.
‘The standards regarding ‘safe levels’ of radiation were designed for workplace safety and are very conservative,’ said Boone. ‘We don’t know whether the established thresholds are really meaningful for exposure from medical testing.’
The experts pointed out that because there is a high background incidence of cancer world-wide, the small incremental increase in cancer that may be attributable to low doses of radiation from medical imaging is extremely difficult to ascertain. They stated that national and international registries that track cancers and patient exposures to medical radiation may one day make it possible to conduct large epidemiological studies that could help make such associations.
‘In reaction to media coverage of radiation overexposure cases, some patients refuse to undergo medical imaging procedures,’ said Boone. ‘Yet for almost all patients, the risks of foregoing a needed medical procedure far outweigh any potential radiation-associated risks.’
Even accurately recording patient exposures of radiation from medical imaging is extremely difficult, according to the authors. Although it is easy to ascertain how much radiation a machine administers during an imaging study, the amount actually received by a patient depends on various factors including body size. For example, because of differences in body mass, children and small adults can receive a dose of radiation two to three times that of larger people, even when the dose administered is the same.
Other factors, such as whether the patient lies on a moving or stationary table, also affect the radiation dose received. Federally sponsored research is needed to develop methods to more accurately measure patient exposures from different types of CT scans, the authors suggested.
UC Davis Comprehensive Cancer Center
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Hearts previously rejected due to donors’ age or other risk factors can now be declared viable for transplantation using pharmacological stress echo, according to research presented at EUROECHO and other Imaging Modalities 2012. The study was presented by Dr Tonino Bombardini from Pisa, Italy.
Heart transplantation is an established procedure in patients with end-stage heart failure but it is limited by a severe donor organ shortage. The average age of organ donors has increased and the donor is frequently a patient who died of a stroke. Every year in Europe a pool of
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The population of the United States is getting older, due not only to ageing boomers but also to a four-year increase in life expectancy from 1990 to 2010. An ageing population means increased diagnosis of prostate cancer. Statistically, the older the patient at time of diagnosis, the more aggressive the disease
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Researchers have found that using telemedicine to deliver stroke care, also known as telestroke, appears to be cost-effective for rural hospitals that do not have an around-the-clock neurologist, or stroke expert, on staff. The research is intended to help hospital administrators evaluate telestroke.
In telestroke care, the use of a telestroke robot allows a patient with stroke to be examined in real time by a neurology specialist elsewhere who consults via computer with an emergency room physician in the rural site.
‘Previous studies have demonstrated that a hub-and-spoke telestroke network is cost-effective from the societal perspective
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Most patients whose breast cancer has spread to their lymph nodes have most of the lymph nodes in their armpit area removed after chemotherapy to see if any cancer remains. A study conducted through the American College of Surgeons Oncology Group and led by Judy Boughey, M.D. a breast surgeon at Mayo Clinic shows that a less invasive procedure known as sentinel lymph node surgery successfully identified whether cancer remained in lymph nodes in 91 percent of patients with node-positive breast cancer who received chemotherapy before their surgery. In sentinel lymph node surgery, only a few lymph nodes, the ones most likely to contain cancer, are removed.
‘Since treatment with chemotherapy before surgery can eliminate cancer in the lymph nodes in some patients, we were interested in evaluating whether sentinel lymph node surgery could successfully identify whether cancer remained in the lymph nodes after chemotherapy,’ says Dr. Boughey. Removing only a few lymph nodes reduces the risk of surgical complications such as numbness and arm swelling, she says.
Researchers studied 756 women with node-positive breast cancer who received chemotherapy as an initial treatment. Of study participants, 637 patients had both sentinel lymph node and axillary lymph node surgery. Sentinel lymph node surgery correctly identified whether cancer lingered in 91 percent of patients, including 255 patients with node-negative breast cancer and 326 patients with continuing node-positive disease.
Researchers also found that 40 percent of the patients had complete eradication of the cancer from the lymph nodes. The study had a false-negative rate of 12.6 percent and the false negative rate was significantly lower with the use of dual tracers (blue dye and radiolabeled colloid) to identify the sentinel lymph nodes.
Dr. Boughey says that technical factors in surgery are important to help ensure correct staging, the process of determining how far cancer may have spread.
Mayo Clinic Cancer Center
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It appears that sugar really may help the medicine go down – studies suggest a few drops can comfort babies who are having their jabs. The Cochrane team reviewed 14 studies involving more than 1,500 infants going for routine childhood immunisations or a heel-prick blood test.
Babies given a sugary solution to suck as they were about to be injected cried far less than those given water. While sugar may pacify, it is unclear if it also relieves pain.
Experts say more research is needed to explore this.
A small study published a couple of years ago in The Lancet medical journal looked at the responses of 44 infants given either sugar or water as they had a heel-prick blood test. The sugar did not appear to make a difference to pain – all babies similarly grimaced and had comparable electrical activity measured with EEG readings in areas of the brain that process pain.
The lead researcher in the Cochrane review, Dr Manal Kassab of the Jordan University of Science and Technology in Irib, Jordan, said: ‘Giving babies something sweet to taste before injections may stop them from crying for as long.
‘Although we can’t confidently say that sugary solutions reduce needle pain, these results do look promising.’
Dr David Elliman of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said sugar solution was not used routinely in practice.
‘Generally, doctors recommend that the mother holds the baby and comforts it while they have their immunisation. If she is breastfeeding still, she might want to breastfeed her baby at the same time.
‘With older children we try to distract them. If you do the usual holding and comforting, I’m not sure how much sucrose would add.
‘What we do know is that using a shorter needle tends to be more painful, even though this might seem counterintuitive. That’s because the injections need to go into the muscle.’
By the time a child has reached its second birthday it should have had around 10 different injections to protect against various infectious diseases, including measles, mumps and rubella.
BBC
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