A Child's Imagination can Reduce Abdominal Pain

Recently, studies have shown that Children that use audio tapes that give instructions to guide through mental therapy have almost three times a chance to improve abdominal pain than children who simply use normal medical treatment.

The experiment focused on children with functional abdominal pain. Functional abdominal pain is a chronic pain that has no medical explanation. It can interfere with people's daily activities and other tasks. Additionally, functional abdominal pain is very common, and affects up to 20% of children. Studies prior to this one have shown that guided imagery and behavioral therapy, coupled with regular medical care, can greatly improve their condition. Behavior therapy is a form of psychotherapy used to treat depression, anxiety disorders,
phobias, and other forms of psychopathology. However, behavioral therapy is expensive and time consuming, and the researchers doing this experiment wanted to see if behavioral therapy could be dropped and only the guided imagery is necessary. Guided imagery is a psychotherapy method. It is a therapeutic technique in which a facilitator uses descriptive language intended to psychologically benefit mental imagery.

The study used 34 children (aged 6 to 15) who had functional abdominal pain, and 19 of those children were randomly selected to get guided imagery therapy and normal medical treatment, while the rest of the children acquired only medical treatment. The image therapy consisted of four biweekly 20-minute sections and shorter 10-minute sections. The image therapy used CDs that gave instructions to the children to imagine different scenarios. For example, imagining themselves on clouds and floating gently. The children reported that the CDs were easy and fun to use.

29 children finished the test, 15 in the guided imagery group, and 14 in the only medical care group. 73.3% of the guided imagery group reported that their pain was decreased by at least half or more by the end of the test. On the other hand, only 26.7% of the children in the medical treatment only group said that their pain decreased by half or more. This number increased to 58.3 after the medical treatment only children were giving the imagery therapy. In both groups, 62.5% of the children's pain stayed away for at least six months.

The researchers concluded that the guided imagery and medical care combined gave substantially more benefits then just medical care alone, and that the benefits of the treatment persisted for long periods of time after the treatment is stopped. Functional abdominal pain is very common but affects peoples lives. The treatment including behavior therapy is very expensive. If the behavior therapy is dropped, than the people who can not afford it or who's health care does not cover behavior therapy now know that it is not needed or can be treated without it.

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A Child's Imagination Can Reduce Abdominal Pain

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Mason, Afemi, and Coda -02

Sources:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091012084208.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org

Breath in, Breath out: A New Indicator of Lung Cancer

Lung Cancer is a result of uncontrollable cell overproduction in the lung tissues. The overproduction of cells is caused by changes to the DNA in the tissue that lines the bronchi of the lungs. If the mass production of cells continues to harm the tissue, lung cancer will eventually develop. Smoking, ionizing radiation, and viral infection are all major contributors to lung cancer. Although radon gas and viruses can both lead to lung cancer, the carcinogens in tobacco smoke make smoking the leading cause of lung cancer.
Unfortunately, in the past, lung cancer has been an incredibly hard disease to catch early on and wasn’t identified until treatment was no longer very useful. Now, researchers are beginning to discover new ways to catch the disease in its initial stages. One of these new ways is an electronic nose. Scientists at the Israel Institute of TechnolProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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y in Haifa are using gold nanoparticles to create sensors with revolutionary sensitivity that can be used to sniff out the compounds present in the breath of a lung cancer patient.
Although there have been a few other trials of similar sensors, the Israeli device has been the most successful, requiring a lower concentration of disease indicating chemicals. These chemicals are called volatile organic compounds (VOCs). VOCs are organic chemical compoundProxy-Connection: keep-alive
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20that are the metabolic products present in the vapors we breathe out. Since VOCs occur in such small amounts when we exhale, researchers have tried to find ways to increase their concentrations when testing for lung cancer. But now, Dr. Hossam Haick and a few of his colleagues have invented sensors that use a range of nanoparticles that can detect the small natural concentrations of VOCs in human breath.
The other similar attempted devices depended on detecting VOCs with optical sensors, mass spectrometry, or acoustic sensors. These devices are much more expensive and less convenient. Although Haick had a few difficulties figuring out how to stick the VOCs to the gold, he got it to work and the gold nanopartical sensors are much less expensive and much more portable. Along with detecting VOCs in patients’ breath, the gold nanoparticle sensors can also detect some of the distinct signs for other diseases, like liver failure.
After testing the sensor on forty healthy patients and fifty-six lung cancer patients, he found that the device could reliably distinguish between cancerous and healthy breath. Currently, they are testing the device on a larger sample of people with different stages of the cancer and hope to be ready to begin clinical trial within the next two or three years. Meanwhile, Haick and his colleagues have also been testing the electronic nose above colonies of cells grown in culture. They discovered that while the sensor was able to detect compounds already known to breath, other lung cancer associated VOCs were not detected. So now they are working to figure out what exactly those are, which will hopefully lead to new information on lung cancer and how to treat it.

Powerpoint

Cancer Breathalyzer

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Sources:
http://www.technologyreview.com/biomedicine/23331/?nlid=2318
http://lnbd.technion.ac.il/NanoChemistry/Templates/ShowPage.asp?DBID=1&TMID=139&LNGID=1&FID=502&PID=0&IID=741
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lung_cancer#Causes

Dylan and Cassie

Creating Stem Cells

In recent years, there has been a debate in the scientific community over whether using stem cells to cure diseases such as Sickle Cell Anemia and Diabetes is humane. Stem cells are cells that can become any cell in the body. All cells, including stem cells have the same DNA. The difference is which genes are "switched on."

Sickle Cell Anemia is a disease in which the sufferer's red blood cells, in stead of being the usual donut shape, are shaped like sickles. These cell are much less efficient at transporting oxygen. Using stem cells, these disease could be cured by using stem cells to create normal red blood cells. Unfortunately, the only way to get stem cells is from human embryos. At least until now.

A Japanese scientist named Shinya Yamanaka has developed a way to change ordinary skin cells back into stem cells. He takes ordinary skin cells and adds a virus to them that reverses the genes that are switched on, changing them back into stem cells. Unfortunately, the virus he used can cause cancer. A scientist at M.I.T. tested created stem cells on mice who had Sickle Cell Anemia. He was able to cure all of them. He prevented them from getting Cancer by removing the gene that caused cancer after creating the cells. This is a major breakthrough in medicine.

Acknowledgments: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sciencenow/0305/03.html for information

Stem Cell Research

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New treatment could alleviate symptoms genetic disorders causing protein deficiencies

Fabry Disease Ppt.Cyrus & Jukie

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For seventeen years Raul Hernandez struggled to live a normal life while dealing with a rare genetic disorder called Anderson Febry's disease. Often misdiagnosed as a variety of other afflictions, Raul's doctor believed the severe pain he experienced in his hands and feet were merely psychological. Now Raul is able to take part in clinical trials for a new treatment called Enzyme Replacement Therapy.
Febry's disease is caused by an inherited genetic mutation which disables the production an enzyme called Alpha-Galactosidase, an enzyme which breaks down a specific glycolipid called globotriaosylceramide or GL-3. Deficiency of this enzyme causes symptoms such as neuropathic pain throughout the hand and feet and the lipids to accumulate within the body, damaging organs and cases of angiokeratoma on the skin which can ultimately prove fatal due to heart attacks or strokes caused by clotting within the blood vessels.
Enzyme Replacement Therapy demonstrates a newly refined method to alleviate the symptoms of Febry’s disease. By injecting the necessary protein directly into the bloodstream the patient is able to function normally for up to two weeks before they require another injection. So far the treatment has proven to effectively reduce patients pain.

The Cure for Cancer???

During recent studies, scientist have found that heat therapy combined with chemotherapy may help cure and keep cancer away from patients. People who endure chemotherapy have not found these results as often. Some scientist think that if the chemotherapy dosage is cut in half to use more heat therapy, that that would be better for the cancer treatments.

In Germany, they have started using heat therapy more and made the amount being bought go up by 120%. With the heat therapy, the patients does not have the strong effects of chemotherapy. If more research is done, this may be a great alternative for chemotherapy. Patients that have the cancer heat treatments have a higher survival rate then those who just endure chemotherapy. Why? Researchers at John Hopkins University say the cancers cells are very sensitive to body heat. The heat can kill or make the cells more sensitive which may make the chemotherapy work better, and have results, such as curing the cancer faster, and making sure it never comes back to the same patient.

"Almost three years after starting treatment, they were 42% less likely to experience a recurrence of their cancer at the same site or to die than those who were getting chemotherapy alone," said Rolf Issels, a professor of medical oncology at the University of Munich in Germany. Specifically, it has been found that targeted heat has helped with breast cancer and cervical cancer. If in fact this becomes the alternative treatment for cancer, this will help over 10,000,000 cancer patients. Though this would be a medical revolution, many test still have to be done before this cure can be used throughout the world.
Raina, Sami, and Peik

Heat Treatment 2

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Alzheimer's is Connected to Lack of Sleep

http://www.sciencenews.org/view/download/id/47728/name/LESS_SLEEP%2C_MORE_PLAQUES

Alzheimer's Disease is Connected to Lack of Sleep
This blog is based on the article "ALZHEIMER'S LINKED TO LACK OF ZZZZS"

A study was done to show whether or not lack of sleep makes the brains of mice release more amyloid-beta. Amyloid-beta is protein that is released from the brain in mice and the spinal fluid of people. It can become sticky and clump together, forming plaques. These plaques can lead to the death of neurons which promotes the symptoms of Alzheimer's Disease.

Researchers were lead by David Holtzman in an experiment that tracked the levels of amyloid-beta in mice as they were awake and sleeping. They found that the mice's brains released more of the protein while the animals were awake and it went down substantially when the mice were sleeping. And, the longer the mice were awake, the more amyloid-beta was released.

The researchers did another experiment. They gave some mice a shot of orexin. Orexin is a protein that is naturally produced by the body to promote wakefulness. The mice injected with orexin had more amyloid-beta than the mice that were not injected with the protein. Also, by blocking the orexin the researchers found that the amount of amyloid-beta decreased.
The researchers weren't sure it is was the orexin itself that caused the increases in amyloid-beta or if it helped keep the mice awake, allowing more time for the amyloid-beta to build up.

The research team studied mice that were genetically inclined to build up plaques. Some mice were deprived of sleep while the others slept when they wanted to. The mice that were deprived of sleep were given an orexin blocker and kept awake in another way. The drug that blocks orexin also blocks plaque buildup, which is strange because, the mice with less sleep built up more plaques than the rested mice.

Studies like these in people have not shown a direct link between lack of sleep and the disease. Especially, chronic lack of sleep in in middle aged people who are genetically predisposed to have plaque buildup could hasten the arrival of the Alzheimer's disease.
Some researchers where thinking of giving the orexin blocker to people who are genetically inclined to have plaque buildup. Unfortunately, only a very small dosage could be given to the person so they wouldn't be asleep all the time. And, such a small dosage wouldn't be enough to stop plaque buildup.

So all of you reading this, GET YOUR SLEEP!

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Lack Of Sleep Is Connected To Alzheimer S

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Ilan, Arielle, Danielle, 02

Gene Therapy Cures Color-Blindness in Adult Monkeys

Gene Therapy Cures Color-Blindness in Adult Monkeys

 

Hope for The Colorblind

A husband and wife team at the University of Washington recently ‘cured’ color-blindness in two monkeys. Monkeys are similar to humans in that sometimes they are born with a defective or missing gene that makes it impossible for them to differentiate between red and green. It was once believed that this problem could not be fixed because scientists thought that the brain could not process colors it had never processed before. However, this finding proves that the brain is capable of processing new colors if there are the receptors in the eye. It is accepted that color blindness is a hereditary trait passed on from generation. It only takes one gene to malfunction of be nonexistent for colorblindness to take effect. So the researchers at the University of Washington created a virus that would inject this gene into the eye. The virus did and within twenty weeks the monkeys had gained to ability to see red and green as different colors. However, their ability to distinguish was not as good as monkeys who were born free of color-blindness, but one researcher believes that it is not impossible to give them the vision of standard monkeys. He believes that the treatment just requires improvement to give perfect sight to these monkeys and possibly humans. 

The researchers at the University of Washington believe that someday this could be a safe and successful procedure to conduct on humans. They believe that this would be a huge boom in the field of colorblindness as without much risk people could see in full color. The researchers do not want to stop at just green red colorblindness. They believe this treatment can be applied to those with achromatopsia, which is blindness to all colors. They believe this treatment could help people with degenerative sight disorders, ones which where sight gets worse as the person gets older. However to do this researchers will have to make sure that these treatments will target only certain photoreceptor cells for them to start testing.

This experiment brings hope to population that has been plagued by a disorder to various degrees. To some this would not be a great revelation, as in someone with simple red-green colorblindness. For others with more serious disorders this could not only allow them to see the world in a different way it would open up a realm of possibilities. Some of us might take for granted our ability to see different colors but it plays a vital role in things as basic as our commute to choosing what we want to wear. This treatment would make certain peoples lives much easier but also open up doors to new careers, which might have been denied to them because of the disability they have in their sight. 

Hayes and Graham 

Gene Therapy Cures Colorblindness in Monkeys

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