New Defibrillator Works Without Wires Touching Heart

A new implantable defibrillator accurately detects abnormal heart rhythms and shocks the heart back into normal rhythm, yet has no wires touching the heart.

This device is called as - subcutaneous implantable cardiac defibrillator (S-ICD), this device is placed under the patient's skin and has a wire under the skin along the left side of the breast bone.

The device detects life-threatening arrhythmias from normal rhythms, and once it notices the life-threatening rhythm it will automatically shock the heart back to its normal rhythm.

This device has a great advantage that it's very durable, because of the flexibility in the wiring.

However, the new device won't replace standard implantable defibrillators because many patients who need an implantable defibrillator also need a pacemaker to keep the heart beating regularly and this new device does not pace the heart, so it will be a good alternative for the patients who doesnt need pacing.

Also, this new device is more costly then the standard defibrillators and cost about $24,000.

For more information about the study please visit-http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_140080.html

So, what are your thoughts about the device? will it be very useful in future? looking at the cost of the device and also the fact that it doesn't have the ability of pacing the heart.

 #hcsm  #meddevice #healthinnovations #biotech

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DNA from our mother's influences the aging process

Scientists say that the process through which we age is determined not only by the changes we go through in our lifetime, but also by the genes we get from our mothers.

A new research from from Karolinska Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging, say's that the process of aging is dependent of the power house of the cell, i.e the Mitochondria (The mitochondrion is located within the cell and is responsible for producing the cell's supply of Adenosine 5'-triphosphate (ATP) - a source of chemical energy) 

According to the professor at the Karolinska Institute and principal investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Aging, Nils-Göran Larsson - "The mitochondria contains their own DNA, which changes more than the DNA in the nucleus, and this has a significant impact on the aging process" also "Many mutations in the mitochondria gradually disable the cell's energy production."

So basically, "a mutated DNA speeds up the aging process."

Mitochondrial DNA (mDNA) damage can build up over a person's lifetime, according to the researchers. But this latest study has found that mitochondrial DNA damage can actually be passed on from our mothers.

This research was performed on a series of inbred mice, and through MRI scanning the scientist were able to detect the amount of mutated DNA's which lead to speed up the aging process in mice.

So, if we inherit more mutated mDNA (Mitochondria DNA) from our mothers we age more quickly.

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Researchers Prove Carbon Monoxide Passes Through Walls

Carbon monoxide gas can pass easily through drywall, and poison those living inside a home, apartment or condo, researchers from Seattle report.

The finding highlights the need for having carbon monoxide alarms in your home, since even checking your own appliances won't guarantee that the lethal gas might not seep through your walls from another source, experts say.

"What this study tells me is that carbon monoxide does not stay put in a building, that the barriers between apartments or condos will slow down carbon monoxide, but do not stop it," said Dr. Eric Lavonas, associate director of the Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center in Denver.

"Therefore, the best way to protect your family is to have a working carbon monoxide alarm in your home," according to Lavonas, who was not involved with the study.

Carbon monoxide is a colorless, odorless gas found in car exhaust and in fumes from fuel-burning sources such as generators, charcoal grills, gas stoves and wood fireplaces.

"Any source of combustion produces carbon monoxide of some degree, no matter how clean-burning your appliances are," said study author Dr. Neil Hampson, with the Center for Hyperbaric Medicine at the Virginia Mason Medical Center in Seattle.

The report is published in the Aug. 21 issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association.

Unintentional carbon monoxide poisoning kills between 400 and 500 people per year in the United States. The only form of protection is a carbon monoxide alarm.

"[Carbon monoxide] is undetectable to human senses. You cannot see it, you cannot smell it, and you cannot taste it, so you do not know you've been poisoned until you get sick and start getting headaches, vomiting or pass out," Hampson explained.

Twenty-five states require residences to have these alarms, but 10 of these states now allow exemptions for homes that have no internal sources of carbon monoxide. Many experts are concerned that these exemptions will lead to an increase in accidental poisonings, particularly in multi-family dwellings, where walls between homes are shared.

To prove that carbon monoxide can go through walls, researchers placed varying thicknesses of drywall in a Plexiglas container to observe how quickly the gas could travel through the walls. Because the pores in the wallboard are 1 million times larger than a carbon monoxide molecule, the gas passed easily through the porous barrier. Painted drywall slowed down the gas only a bit.

Only alarms can detect carbon monoxide gas once it is in a home, but far too many homes either don't have one or have one that isn't functioning because the batteries have died or have been removed. According to Lavonas, only 30 percent of American homes have a working carbon monoxide alarm. In North Carolina, a state that has a law requiring the devices, only 67.8 percent of homes do, according to a study published in the American Journal of Public Health in 2012.

There have been many cases of poisonings in homes where carbon monoxide alarms were found, "but they either had no battery in them or they hadn't even been taken out of the package," Hampson said. In addition to changing the batteries regularly, it's important to check the expiration date on the alarm itself, he added.

"When you change your batteries, you should look at the back of the alarm to see when the expiration date is. It's either five or seven years, depending on the manufacturer," Hampson explained.

Unlike smoke alarms, carbon monoxide alarms may be placed anywhere, from the bottom of the wall to the ceiling, and only one is needed per level, preferably located just outside the sleeping areas.

Some alarms can be plugged directly into an electrical outlet or hard-wired, but both Hampson and Lavonas caution that if these are used, they should have a battery back-up. Most carbon monoxide poisonings occur during blackouts, when power is out, they noted.

If your alarm sounds, leave your home immediately, and call the fire department.

SOURCES: Neil Hampson, M.D., emeritus physician, Center for Hyperbaric Medicine, Virginia Mason Medical Center, Seattle; Eric Lavonas, M.D., associate director, Rocky Mountain Poison and Drug Center, Denver; Aug. 21, 2013, Journal of the American Medical Association

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Aspirin tied to smaller lung and colon cancer tumors

Colon and lung cancer patients who regularly took low-dose aspirin before their diagnosis tended to have less advanced tumors, in a new study.

Scientists already knew that aspirin was tied to a decreased risk of death for people with colon cancer, said senior author Yudi Pawitan.

"We showed evidence that it is also beneficial for lung cancer, and has both early and late protective effects," Pawitan, of the department of medical epidemiology and bio-statistics at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, told Reuters Health.

However, the finding doesn't mean everyone should be taking aspirin to ward off advanced cancer, researchers said.

Pawitan and his coauthors analyzed data from Swedish cancer and prescription drug registries that included 80,000 patients with colorectal, lung, prostate or breast cancer.

One in four people with colorectal, lung or prostate cancer had regularly taken low-dose aspirin before being diagnosed - typically one 75-milligram tablet per day - compared to about one in seven breast cancer patients.

The researchers found 20 to 40 percent fewer colon, lung and breast cancer patients who had taken aspirin had tumors that had spread to other areas of the body than those who had not taken aspirin.

For example, 19 percent of regular aspirin users with colon cancer had metastatic disease, compared to close to 25 percent of non-users.

Tumors on average were smaller and less advanced among aspirin users with colon and lung cancer, but not those with breast or prostate cancer, according to results published in the British Journal of Cancer.

"The fact that they did not find a similar result for breast and prostate cancer does not exclude the possibility that aspirin may work at a different point in the cancer process for those cancers," said Dr. Michelle Holmes, who researches cancer risk factors at Brigham and Women's Hospital and Harvard Medical School in Boston.

"This paper confirms what is already known: aspirin use is associated with decreased risk and better survival," said Dr. Gerrit-Jan Liefers, a cancer surgeon at Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands.

Liefers said it was interesting that the study found aspirin was associated with smaller tumors but not with whether nearby lymph nodes were involved, which can be an indicator of a cancer's aggressiveness. That's a new finding and will fuel more discussion about how aspirin works, Liefers, who was not involved in the study, told Reuters Health.

"The mechanism is not fully understood," Pawitan said. Some researchers believe the anti-inflammatory and blood thinning effects of aspirin contribute to the lowered risk of certain cancers, he said.

Researchers also aren't sure why aspirin would end up being beneficial for people who develop colon and lung cancer and not for breast or prostate cancer patients, though breast and prostate cancers often have more hormonal factors involved, he said.

It is possible that people who regularly take aspirin tend to have different lifestyles than those who don't, and some other aspect of their lives contributes to their differing cancer risks, Liefers said. The researchers in this study accounted for age, gender and socioeconomic status, but ruling out all other factors in this type of population-based study is always difficult, he said.

Trials that randomly assign people to take aspirin or not will better be able to account for lifestyle differences and are already in the early stages in Asia, The Netherlands and the UK, he said.

Without those randomized controlled trials, researchers can't say aspirin caused the reduced cancer risks observed in this study, Holmes told Reuters Health.

Regular use of aspirin has been shown to increase the chance of gastrointestinal bleeds.

"Because it has side effects, it would be difficult if not impossible to prescribe aspirin to all people," Pawitan said. Ideally, only those at high risk for developing cancer would take aspirin.

"Whether such an approach would benefit society as a whole deserves further studies," he said.

SOURCE: http://bit.ly/12Yxaob British Journal of Cancer, online July 25, 2013.

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