Specialists in HIV and in hearing at the University of Rochester Medical Center are teaming up to measure the hearing of people with AIDS.

The five-year study is believed to be the first large study of its kind testing the hearing of people with HIV/AIDS and comparing the results with those from people without HIV. The new effort, supported by a $1.9 million grant from the National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders, is the result of collaboration between hearing experts and experts on HIV and AIDS.

The study is led by Amneris Luque, M.D., associate professor of Medicine and director of Strong Memorial Hospital's AIDS Clinic, which provides care for more than 900 patients. The project brings together experts in the nervous system and the immune system, both of which are involved in many types of hearing loss. The first of 360 participants who will take part in the study enrolled last week.

Luque will work closely with hearing researcher Robert Frisina, Ph.D., professor of Otolaryngology, Biomedical Engineering, and Neurobiology and Anatomy. Frisina's team, which is based at the Medical Center as well as the National Technical Institute for the Deaf, is widely regarded as one of the premier groups in the world looking at age-related hearing loss.

Luque says that since AIDS was recognized nearly three decades ago, hearing loss among some patients has been reported. However, these reports have been scattered and unconfirmed.

"There has not been a systematic study looking at hearing function in people with HIV," said Luque. "If there is hearing impairment, it could be related to the disease itself; it might be related to infections that our patients with AIDS are prone to getting; or it might be related to the medications used to treat the disease."

Luque notes that some scientists have found evidence that people with HIV/AIDS may be aging prematurely compared to people without HIV. The team will look closely at whether a similar acceleration of aging may play a role in the hearing of people with HIV.

In addition, of course, many people without HIV also experience hearing loss. Causes of hearing loss can include noise exposure, medications used to treat conditions like cancer or other infections, or heredity. Sorting out those causes from other processes unique to people with HIV is challenging.

"We're trying to tease out what is happening in people with HIV," said Luque. "Is there something inherent about the infection that may be involved in hearing loss?"

Participants in the study will undergo periodic, rigorous testing of their hearing. Scientists will study patients at various stages of HIV infection, including some infected people known as "long-term non-progressors" or "elite controllers," people in whom the infection hasn't advanced even without medication.

The team will compare the results in HIV/AIDS patients to results in healthy people who have had similar hearing tests conducted at the International Center for Hearing and Speech Research, where Frisina is associate director. That database includes extensive information about the hearing of more than 1,400 healthy people who have had similar testing done.

Newborn babies mimic the intonation of their native tongue when they cry, indicating that they begin to pick up the first elements of language in the womb, a study suggests.

Scientists were already aware that babies are able to recognise certain sounds from birth, such as their parents' voices, but they believed that infants were only able to imitate them from the age of about 12 weeks.

Now research carried out in Germany suggests that babies develop a capacity for language much earlier than was previously thought. "Our study shows the importance of crying for seeding language development,"said Professor Kathleen Wermke, who led the research at the University of Wurzburg.

The study, which is published today in the journal Current Biology , recorded and analysed the cries of 60 healthy babies: 30 born into French-speaking families and 30 from German-speaking families. The recordings were made in maternity wards when the babies were 3 to 5 days old. Analysis revealed clear differences in the shape of the babies' "cry melodies", which appeared to accord with their mother tongue.

French newborns tended to cry with a rising melody contour, starting at a low pitch and ending on a high note, whereas German babies preferred a falling melody.

While the average volume of crying was the same, the French babies started more quietly and built up to a crescendo, while the German babies did the opposite. These patterns are consistent with characteristic differences between the two languages, according the researchers.

"When you say the word 'Papa' in German, for instance, you stress the first syllable, whereas in French it is the other way round," explained Professor Angela Friederici, of the Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig. The same pattern is typical for longer phrases, she said.

Volker Dellwo, a hearing and phonetics scientist at University College London, said melody contour was one of the most basic characteristics of language and one that he could imagine babies mimicking.

However, other academics were unconvinced by the findings. "Biologists and medical people are always talking rubbish about language because they don't understand it," said Professor John Wells, a linguistics specialist at University College London. "Both German and French use rises and falls, as does English. It's easy to compare syntax and word order but this just sounds too vague."

Earlier studies of vocal imitation had shown that infants were able to match vowel sounds spoken to them by adults, but only from 12 weeks onwards. That skill depends on more sophisticated vocal control that is not physically possible much earlier.

"Imitation of melody contour is something that they can do immediately after birth," said Professor Wermke. She said that from an evolutionary perspective, newborn babies were probably highly motivated to imitate their mother's behaviour in order to foster bonding.

Speech is also one of the few human stimuli that penetrates the womb, where the foetus is otherwise insulated from light, smell and touch. "In the womb, you hear voices as though someone were speaking next door, so rhythm and melody contour are the two things you'd be able to perceive," added Dr Dellwo.

Professor Wermke said that the research supported the idea that unborn babies could be soothed by music or a parent's voice. "We've shown that the brain is mature to process basic aspects of language and music, and speech probably is stimulating for the foetus. I wouldn't go as far as to say that it would be harmful if you were too busy to play them Mozart CDs, though," she said.

Unlike subcutaneous fat that lies just under the skin and is noticeable, visceral fat lies in the abdominal cavity under the abdominal muscle. Visceral fat is more dangerous than subcutaneous fat because it often surrounds vital organs. The more visceral fat one has, the greater is the chance of developing Type 2 diabetes and heart disease.

In the study, UAB exercise physiologist Gary Hunter, Ph.D., and his team randomly assigned 45 European-American and 52 African-American women to three groups: aerobic training, resistance training or no exercise. All of the participants were placed on an 800 calorie-a-day diet and lost an average 24 pounds. Researchers then measured total fat, abdominal subcutaneous fat and visceral fat for each participant.

Afterward, participants in the two exercise groups were asked to continue exercising 40 minutes twice a week for one year. After a year, the study's participants were divided into five groups: those who maintained aerobic exercise training, those who stopped aerobic training, those who maintained their resistance training, those who stopped resistance training and those who were never placed on an exercise regimen.

"What we found was that those who continued exercising, despite modest weight regains, regained zero percent visceral fat a year after they lost the weight," Hunter said. "But those who stopped exercising, and those who weren't put on any exercise regimen at all, averaged about a 33 percent increase in visceral fat.

"Because other studies have reported that much longer training durations of 60 minutes a day are necessary to prevent weight regain, it's not too surprising that weight regain was not totally prevented in this study," Hunter said. "It's encouraging, however, that this relatively small amount of exercise was sufficient to prevent visceral fat gain."

The study also found that exercise was equally effective for both races.

Leading a healthy lifestyle can help stave off or lower the risk of developing type 2 diabetes in high risk people, say researchers
Woman
Healthy lifestyle could help keep diabetes at bay for a decade (Getty Images)
.

Lead researcher Dr Jill Crandall, associate professor of clinical medicine at Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University has shown that intensive lifestyle changes i.e. modest weight loss coupled with increased physical activity reduced the rate for developing type 2 diabetes by 58 percent.

The study showed that sustaining modest weight loss for 10 years, or taking an anti-diabetic drug over that time, can prevent or lower the incidence of diabetes.

During the Diabetes Prevention Program (DPP), all were overweight or obese adults with elevated blood glucose levels.

After three years, the results showed that rigorous lifestyle changes reduced the rate for developing type 2 diabetes by 58 percent compared with placebo, while oral diabetes drug metformin reduced the rate of developing diabetes by 31 percent compared with placebo.

Over the period of 10 years, the diabetes incidence in the lifestyle group was reduced by 34 percent.

"The fact that we've continued to delay and possibly even prevent diabetes in people at very high risk for developing the disease is certainly a positive finding," The Lancet quoted Dr Crandall as saying.

"The fact that we've continued to delay and possibly even prevent diabetes in people at very high risk for developing the disease is certainly a positive finding," she added.

What is
dengue?

Dengue is a mosquito-borne seasonal viral infection caused by any of four closely related viruses (DENV 1-4). The virus is transmitted by a bite of female mosquito of any of two species of mosquitoes of the genus Aedes. The mosquito, which typically bites humans in the daylight hours, can be easily recognized because of its peculiar white spotted body and legs. Outbreak of the disease typically occurs in summer season when the mosquito population reaches its peak. It occurs widely in tropical and subtropical areas in Asia, Africa, Central and South America. Unlike malaria, which is a major health concern in rural areas, dengue is equally prevalent in the urban areas too. In fact, it is predominantly reported in urban and semi-urban areas. WHO estimates that there may be 50 million dengue infections worldwide every year. A severe form of the infection is known as dengue hemorrhagic fever (DHF). DHF can be fatal if not detected.

What are its symptoms?


After its entry into patient's body, the virus multiplies to reach sufficient numbers to cause the symptoms. This process might take 4-6 days after which the symptoms become visible. The main symptoms of dengue are high fever (103-105 degrees fahrenheit), severe headache (mostly in the forehead), severe pain behind the eyes, joint pain, muscle and bone pain, rashes, and mild bleeding from nose or gums. Because of the severe joint pain, dengue is also known as break-bone fever. Typically, younger children and those with their first dengue infection have a milder illness than older children and adults. DHF is characterized by a fever that lasts for 2 to 7 days, with general signs and symptoms consistent with dengue fever. In addition to these symptoms, if a patient suspected with dengue experiences decrease in platelets or an increase in blood haematocrit, it becomes more certain that the patient is suffering from the infection. Platelets are cells in blood that help to stop bleeding, while haematocrit indicates thickness of blood. The smallest blood vessels become excessively permeable allowing fluid component to escape from blood vessels to organs of the body. This may lead to failure of circulatory system, which might also cause death.

What is the treatment for dengue?

Like in most viral diseases, there is no specific cure for dengue. Antibiotics do not help and paracetamol is the drug of choice to bring down fever and joint pain. Others such as Aspirin and Brufen or any medicine that can decrease platelet count should be avoided since they can increase the risk of bleeding.