Healthy News for Healthy Nation

MILAN (Reuters) - The use of antibiotics and other anti-microbial agents throughout the food chain contributes to the growth of resistant bacteria which can be passed on to humans through food, EU’s food agency said on Thursday.

The resistance of bacteria has become a growing concern as anti-microbials become less effective in fighting infections, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) said in a statement.

This has coincided with a rise in bacterial resistance to anti-microbial agents in animals, the EFSA said, citing a draft opinion paper by one of its expert panels which was looking into causes of the growing and diverse range of resistant bacteria and bacteria-borne resistant genes.

The EFSA said hygiene controls should be tightened at every stage of the food chain, from veterinary medicine to food processing and preparation, to prevent the development and spread of antimicrobial resistance.

The main foods carrying antimicrobial resistant bacteria were poultry meat, eggs, pork or beef as well as fresh salads, which can be contaminated during preparation, handling and processing, it said.

The panel found bacteria could be passed directly to people from contaminated food of animal origin carrying resistant bacteria which could colonize or infect people after ingestion.

Bacteria could also be passed to humans by the consumption of fresh produce from land irrigated with water contaminated by slurry or sewage. Food of animal and non-animal origin could also be contaminated during handling and preparation.

The Parma-based EFSA has called for more scientific information on the link between the use of anti-microbial agents in the food chain and transmission of the resistant bacteria to humans and runs consultations on the draft opinion until May 27.

(Reporting by Svetlana Kovalyova; editing by Chris Johnson)

Original here 

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - A drug used to treat the symptoms of psychosis in patients with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder may also be a useful medication for individuals who are addicted to alcohol, findings published in Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research suggest.

Aripiprazole, sold in the U.S. under the trade name Abilify, is an atypical antipsychotic that increases the sedative effects of alcohol, while decreasing its euphoric effects, the researchers explain. The activity of aripiprazole on dopamine receptors in the brain - areas thought to have a role in mood and addiction — suggest the drug would reduce the reinforcing effects of alcohol and thus modulate drinking behavior.

In the current study, Dr. Henry R. Kranzler and colleagues from the University of Connecticut Health Center, Farmington, examined whether aripiprazole could modify the behavioral and physiological effects of a moderate dose of alcohol in a group of social drinkers.

The 18 healthy participants were an average of 27.6 years old and were an average weight for their height. They reported drinking moderately in the 90 days prior to study enrollment: an average of 19.5 days of drinking, 1.8 days of heavy drinking, for a total of 47.8 standard drinks consumed.

The subjects were assigned to take part in three experimental sessions in random sequence: no medication; 2.5 milligrams of aripiprazole; or 10 milligrams of aripiprazole on the day prior to the laboratory session. During the session, the participants consumed alcohol served as three standardized drinks, individually measured according to their sex, body height and body weight.

The authors measured breath alcohol concentration, heart rate, blood pressure, equilibrium, and subjective effects of alcohol regularly throughout the sessions.

The consumption of alcohol led to the expected physiological and subjective responses. For instance, heart rate increased as the aripiprazole dose increased. Aripiprazole also significantly increased the sedative effects and decreased the euphoric effects of alcohol.

Pre-treatment with aripiprazole was generally well tolerated. The most commonly reported adverse event was tiredness. Other adverse events included nausea, sleepiness, headache, and difficulty sleeping.

Because aripiprazole decreases alcohol’s euphoric effects and increases its sedative effects, this drug could be useful in the treatment of heavy drinking, Kranzler’s team concludes. Overall, the findings suggest that “additional research on the effects of aripiprazole on the subjective effects of alcohol is warranted.”

Original here 

By Ben Hirschler

LONDON (Reuters) - Prozac, the popular antidepressant, might also be an effective treatment for adults with a “lazy eye”, according to new research.

A team of Italian and Finnish scientists said on Thursday that the medicine helped correct the eyesight of rats whose vision had been impaired in early development and it could well do the same for humans.

The medicine appears to work by returning neurons in the adult brain to a more “plastic” state normally only seen in youth. This allows the visual perception system to develop its proper connections between the eye and the brain.

The discovery could also help explain exactly how antidepressants help regulate mood in depressed patients, by suggesting brain plasticity is a key part of the process.

Prozac was initially introduced by U.S. drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co in 1987 and belongs to a class of compounds called selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). It is now off patent and widely available generically as fluoxetine.

Jose Fernando Maya Vetencourt from Scuola Normale Superiore in Pisa and colleagues intend to go on to study the drug’s curative properties on human eyesight, though definitive clinical trial plans have yet to be developed.

“It will take a couple of years, maybe more,” he told Reuters.

Amblyopia, commonly known as “lazy eye”, is the most frequent cause of visual impairment in childhood and affects 2 to 3 percent of children, according to the U.S. National Eye Institute.

Unless it is successfully treated, it usually persists into adulthood. Treatment involves making the child use the weaker eye, either by applying an eye patch or by putting drops in the stronger eye to temporarily blur the vision.

There is no proven treatment for adults.

Vetencourt said the ability of Prozac and perhaps other SSRIs to return neurons to a more plastic state could, in theory, mean they might also have a role in other neurological disorders in which synaptic plasticity was compromised, including Alzheimer’s disease.

The team’s findings were published in the journal Science.

(Editing by Will Waterman)

Original here 

1 of 3Full Size

powered by Sphere

Featured Broker sponsored link

$0 stock trades. 10 free per month.

By Jill Serjeant

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Mom’s getting a tummy tuck and a new nose. But how does she tell her kids?

A Florida plastic surgeon has written the first known picture book aimed at 4-7 year-olds that seeks to reassure them about mom going under the knife.

But the book, “My Beautiful Mommy”, has stirred up a hornet’s nest among feminists and even some cosmetic surgeons who feel it may undermine the self-esteem of the very young.

Dr Michael Salzhauer, a father of four, said he wrote the book because many of his patients are having “mommy makeovers” to fix saggy breasts and slack tummies a few years after childbirth and were concerned about what to tell their kids.

“It sounds like a joke but there really is a need to address this issue,” Salzhauer told Reuters. “It is for the mom who has already booked her plastic surgery and now has to tell her kids, why she is going to be in bed, why daddy is picking the kids up from school and all those other issues.”

“Hundreds of thousands of women have this operation in the United States. This is for a specific consumer at a specific time in their life that is going to turn their household upside down for a couple of weeks.”

According to the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, 1.8 million plastic surgery procedures were performed in the United States in 2007 — most of them breast augmentations and liposuction.

Salzhauer said feedback to the book from his own patients has been very positive. But some of the explanations from the attractive, cartoon-style mom in the book have sparked a furious online debate.

“As I got older, my body stretched and I couldn’t fit into my clothes anymore. Dr Michael is going to help fix that and make me feel better,” the mother tells her daughter.

Her nose surgery, she explains, will make her look “not just different, my dear — prettier!”.

Jessica Valenti, executive editor of the Web site www.feministing.com, said she did not wish to sit in judgment of those who get plastic surgery.

“But do we really have to teach our kids that we need it to ‘feel better’ and be ‘beautiful’? Ugh,” Valenti wrote.

Dr Stephen Greenberg, a New York cosmetic surgeon and author of “A Little Nip, A Little Tuck”, said elementary school age children should not be exposed to plastic surgery.

“Let them feel that self esteem comes from within and not necessarily related to how somebody looks,” Greenberg said.

Salzhauer said he was taken aback by the criticism — most of it from people who have not read the entire book. “They are judging the book by its cover, which is kind of ironic.

“This book was written with the best of intentions. It wasn’t trying to corrupt society. It is not glamorizing plastic surgery. It is not intended to be a best seller that children read with their parents before they go to sleep,” he said.

Reuters/Nielsen

Original here