There is good news for heart attack patients. Australian researchers have formulated a new drug called Dz13 that can prove really beneficial in enhancing a patient’s cardiac [pertaining to the heart.] health after surviving a heart attack.

Heart attack or Myocardial Infarction (MI), as it is medically known, is a life threatening condition. Even if one survives it, the quality of life afterwards suffers a lot. Hence, the new research assumes all the more significance.

Dz13 works by affecting the genes [basic, functional units of heredity, each occupying a specific place on a chromosome.] responsible for inflammation, thereby decreasing the muscle impairment following a heart attack. This in turn puts the patient on the fast track to recovery.

Study findings:
The study was conducted by a team of researchers headed by Levon Khachigian from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia.

As per researchers, the Dz13 drug keeps a check on the number of cells that die because of angioplasty and stents. Besides, it enhances the pumping action of the heart.

Khachigian was quoted as saying, “While this drug doesn’t prevent the heart attack, it does reduce the damaging effects of the blockage on the heart once it’s happened. It’s a targeted therapy that can be used to complement other procedures and improve chances of a normal recovery.”

Elaborating on Dz13, Ravinay Bhindi, a study co-author from Royal North Shore Hospital said, “This drug not only structurally reduces heart attack size but it protects heart muscle function. Both those things in combination improve outcomes and give hope to patients.”

Heart surgeries can damage heart muscles Khachigian further explained that surgeries performed to resurrect blocked arteries like angioplasty are as much responsible for impairment of heart muscles as the heart attack itself.

“At both these times a range of potentially damaging coordinated molecular responses kick in. We have been able to develop a drug to silence a disease-triggering gene. The drug improves heart function, regardless of whether it’s administered at the time of the heart attack, or at the time of the revascularization process,” remarked Khachigian.

India is home to 60 percent heart patients:
The latest study holds a lot of promise for India in particular, considering the fact that it accounts for 60 percent of the total heart patients in the world.

Giving daily antiretroviral syrup to breastfeeding infants or treating their HIV-infected mothers with highly active antiretroviral drugs is safe and effective in preventing mother-to-child HIV transmission through breast milk, a study led by University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill investigators has found.

"This is an exciting development," said Charles van der Horst, M.D., a professor in the UNC School of Medicine and the study's lead investigator. "We may be able to spare mothers in the developing world a horrible choice by offering them an effective method for preventing transmission of HIV during breastfeeding."

Approximately 420,000 infants are infected with HIV annually, half through breast milk. HIV-infected women in resource-constrained areas face a terrible dilemma: provide the many health and nutritional benefits of breast milk but face a 20 percent chance of transmitting the virus to their baby or choose costly formula, which relies on an unsafe water supply and carries a higher risk of morbidity and mortality, and avoid transmitting HIV.

The Breastfeeding, Antiretrovirals and Nutrition (BAN) study is the only large-scale, randomized trial comparing infant prophylaxis or maternal treatment to an enhanced standard-of-care arm in the prevention of HIV transmission through breast milk. The study was conducted in Lilongwe, Malawi at a single site. Investigators randomly assigned at total of 2,367 mother-infant pairs to one of three treatment arms. For both the interventions, the probability of HIV-infection was significantly lower than in the enhanced control arm.

Of the randomized infants, 4.9 percent were found to be HIV positive at birth. Among infants who were HIV-free at one week old, 6.4 percent on the enhanced control arm were infected by 28 weeks, compared to 3.0 percent of the infants on the maternal treatment arm and 1.8 percent of the infants who received daily nevirapine syrup. Upon examining the probability of HIV infection or death by 28 weeks postpartum, 7.6 percent of the infants on the enhanced control arm were HIV-infected or died compared to 4.7 percent of the infants on the maternal treatment arm, and 2.9 percent of the infants on the infant prophylaxis arm.

As we age, our ability to adequately respond to summer heat can become a serious problem. The National Institute on Aging (NIA), part of the National Institutes of Health, has some advice for helping older people avoid heat-related illnesses, known collectively as hyperthermia, during the summer months.

Hyperthermia can include heat stroke, heat fatigue, heat syncope (sudden dizziness after exercising in the heat), heat cramps and heat exhaustion. The risk for hyperthermia is a combination of the outside temperature along with the general health and lifestyle of the individual. Health-related factors that may increase risk include:

- Age-related changes to the skin such as poor blood circulation and inefficient sweat glands
- Heart, lung and kidney diseases, as well as any illness that causes general weakness or fever
- High blood pressure or other conditions that require changes in diet. For example, people on salt-restricted diets may increase their risk. However, salt pills should not be used without first consulting a doctor.
- The inability to perspire, caused by medications such as diuretics, sedatives, tranquilizers and certain heart and blood pressure drugs
- Taking several drugs for various conditions. It is important, however, to continue to take prescribed medication and discuss possible problems with a physician.
- Being substantially overweight or underweight
- Drinking alcoholic beverages
- Being dehydrated

Lifestyle factors can also increase risk, including extremely hot living quarters, lack of transportation, overdressing, visiting overcrowded places and not understanding how to respond to weather conditions. Older people, particularly those at special risk, should stay indoors on particularly hot and humid days, especially when there is an air pollution alert in effect. People without fans or air conditioners should go to places such as shopping malls, movie theaters, libraries or cooling centers which are often provided by government agencies, religious groups, and social service organizations in many communities.

Heat stroke is an advanced form of hyperthermia that occurs when the body is overwhelmed by heat and unable to control its temperature. Someone with a body temperature above 104 degrees is likely suffering from heat stroke and may have symptoms of confusion, combativeness, strong rapid pulse, lack of sweating, dry flushed skin, faintness, staggering, possible delirium or coma. Seek immediate medical attention for a person with any of these symptoms, especially an older adult.

If you suspect that someone is suffering from a heat-related illness:

- Get the person out of the sun and into an air-conditioned or other cool place.
- Offer fluids such as water, fruit and vegetable juices, but avoid alcohol and caffeine.
- Encourage the individual to shower, bathe or sponge off with cool water.
- Apply a cold, wet cloth to the wrists, neck, armpits, and/or groin, places where blood passes close to the surface and the cold cloths can help cool the blood.
- Urge the person to lie down and rest, preferably in a cool place.

The NIA leads the federal effort supporting and conducting research on aging and the medical, social and behavioral issues of older people.

A research published ahead of print in the British Journal of Ophthalmology suggests certain types of drugs prescribed to lower blood pressure seem to increase the risk of corrective cataract surgery.

Cataracts cause blurred vision, and if left untreated can lead to blindness. They cloud over the lens at the front of the eye. In order to produce a sharp image, the lens must be transparent for light to pass through to the retina at the back of the eye. Around a third of the UK population over the age of 65 has a cataract in one or both eyes. Approximately 300,000 corrective procedures are carried out each year.

During five to ten years Australian researchers tracked the eye health of over 3,500 people. When the study began between 1992 and 1994, all participants were at least 49 years old.

There was confirmation of a borderline association between the use of beta blockers and calcium channel blockers, and the risk of cataract. Both of them are classes of blood pressure lowering drug.

For two other types of drug used to lower blood pressure, diuretics (water pills) and ACE inhibitors, no such connection was found.

The researchers studied influential factors, such as age, smoking, and use of steroids, which are known to increase cataract risk. They found that ACE inhibitors and beta blockers considerably predicted the likelihood of cataract surgery.

The likelihood for individuals taking beta blockers to undergo cataract surgery was 61 percent. And for those taking ACE inhibitors to lower their blood pressure, the likelihood was 54 percent.

Patients taking beta blockers for conditions other than high blood pressure were more than twice as likely to have the procedure.

The authors remark there has been argument that high blood pressure itself could be responsible for the development of cataracts, but the evidence to verify this has been inconsistent.

According to experimental research, beta blockade could have an effect on the lens transparency by modifying the proteins and altering the delicate cellular balance of the lens.

Younger people are at greater risk of catching swine flu, with most cases occurring in teenagers, the World Health Organization said.

The median age of those infected with the pandemic H1N1 virus is 12 to 17 years, WHO said in a statement yesterday, citing data from Canada, Chile, Japan, U.K. and U.S. Patients requiring hospitalization and those with fatal cases may be slightly older, the Geneva-based United Nations agency said.

“As the disease expands broadly into communities, the average age of the cases is appearing to increase slightly,” WHO said. “This may reflect the situation in many countries where the earliest cases often occurred as school outbreaks but later cases were occurring in the community.”

World health officials are trying to determine which groups are most likely to get severely ill so measures to best protect them can be taken. Drugmakers are developing vaccines to fight the scourge, which WHO says may result in 2 billion infections.

Cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, diabetes and cancer put people infected with the new H1N1 virus at greater risk of developing severe complications, the UN agency said. Asthma and other forms of respiratory disease have been consistently reported as underlying conditions associated with more severe illness in several countries, it said.

Obesity has also been reported as a risk factor, and there is mounting evidence that pregnant women are at higher risk for more severe symptoms, WHO said. Some minority populations may also be more vulnerable, “but the potential contributions of cultural, economic and social risk factors are not clear.”

Vaccine Supply

Humans trials of a pandemic vaccine began in Australia this week, helping regulators gauge the safety and efficacy of shots.

The most common way to make flu vaccine is by growing the virus in fertilizer chicken eggs. The virus is then extracted, purified and killed for injection into humans, prompting the immune system to generate antibodies that fend off any infection.

WHO said yesterday that the yields for pandemic vaccine viruses are 25 percent to 50 percent of those of normal seasonal flu viruses for some manufacturers.

A network of WHO collaborators is trying to develop higher- yielding vaccine virus candidates, the agency said, adding that it will be able to revise its estimate of pandemic vaccine supply once it has the new yield information.