Streptococcus pyogenes is a normal skin bacterium that is frequently associated with chronic (non-healing) wounds. Bacteria that infect wounds can clump together forming ‘biofilms’, which form a barrier to drugs and promotes chronic infection.Researchers at Cardiff Metropolitan University have shown that manuka honey can not only destroy fully-formed S. pyogenes biofilms in vitro but also prevent the bacteria initially binding to components of wound tissue.

 Honey has long been acknowledged for its antimicrobial properties. Traditional remedies containing honey were used in the topical treatment of wounds by diverse ancient civilisations.Manuka honey is derived from nectar collected by honeybees foraging on the manuka tree found growing in New Zealand and parts of Australia. It is included in modern licensed wound-care products around the world.

Manuka honey has been reported to inhibit more than 80 species of bacteria, yet the antimicrobial properties of honey have not yet been fully exploited by modern medicine, as its mechanisms of action are not fully understood.Wounds that are infected with S. pyogenes often fail to respond to treatment. This is largely due to the development of biofilms, which may be difficult for antibiotics to penetrate – in addition to problems of antibiotic resistance.

The results of the study showed that very small concentrations of honey prevented the start of biofilm development and that treating established biofilms grown in Petri dishes with honey for 2 hours killed up to 85per cent of bacteria within them.

The latest study reveals that honey can disrupt the interaction between S. pyogenes and the human protein fibronectin, which is displayed on the surface of damaged cells.“Molecules on the surface of the bacteria latch onto human fibronectin, anchoring the bacteria to the cell. This allows infection to proceed and biofilms to develop,” explained Dr Sarah Maddocks who led the study.“We found that honey reduced the expression of these bacterial surface proteins, inhibiting binding to human fibronectin, therefore making biofilm formation less likely. This is a feasible mechanism by which manuka honey minimizes the initiation of acute wound infections and also the establishment of chronic infections,” Dr Maddocks added.

Ongoing work in Dr Maddocks’ lab is investigating other wound-associated bacteria including Pseudomonas aeruginosa and meticillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA). Manuka honey has also been shown to be effective at killing these bacteria.

The finding has been published in Microbiology.

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A news study has found that adults with higher intakes of milk and milk products scored significantly higher on memory and other brain function tests than those who drank little to no milk.Milk drinkers were five times less likely to “fail” the test, compared to non-milk drinkers.

Researchers at the University of Maine put more than 900 men and women ages 23 to 98 through a series of brain tests ” including visual-spatial, verbal and working memory tests ” and tracked the milk consumption habits of the participants.

In the series of eight different measures of mental performance, regardless of age and through all tests, those who drank at least one glass of milk each day had an advantage.The highest scores for all eight outcomes were observed for those with the highest intakes of milk and milk products compared to those with low and infrequent milk intakes.

The benefits persisted even after controlling for other factors that can affect brain health, including cardiovascular health and other lifestyle and diet factors. In fact, milk drinkers tended to have healthier diets overall, but there was something about milk intake specifically that offered the brain health advantage, according to the researchers.

In addition to the many established health benefits of milk from bone health to cardiovascular health, the potential to stave off mental decline may represent a novel benefit with great potential to impact the aging population. While more research is needed, the scientists suggest some of milk’s nutrients may have a direct effect on brain function and that “easily implemented lifestyle changes that individuals can make present an opportunity to slow or prevent neuropsychological dysfunction.”

The study was published in the International Dairy Journal.

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In the current climate of escalating obesity rates, artificially sweetened soft drinks are marketed as healthier alternatives to sugar-sweetened beverages, due to their lack of calories. However, the long-term health consequences of drinking diet soft drinks remain unclear.

Hannah Gardener and her colleagues from the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and at Columbia University Medical Center examined the relationship between both diet and regular soft drink consumption and risk of stroke, myocardial infarction (or heart attack), and vascular death.

Data were analyzed from 2,564 participants in the NIH-funded Northern Manhattan Study, which was designed to determine stroke incidence, risk factors and prognosis in a multi-ethnic urban population.The researchers looked at how often individuals drank soft drinks – diet and regular – and the number of vascular events that occurred over a ten-year period.

They found that those who drank diet soft drinks daily were 43 percent more likely to have suffered a vascular event than those who drank none, after taking into account pre-existing vascular conditions such as metabolic syndrome, diabetes and high blood pressure.

Light diet soft drink users, i.e. those who drank between one a month and six a week, and those who chose regular soft drinks were not more likely to suffer vascular events.“Our results suggest a potential association between daily diet soft drink consumption and vascular outcomes. However, the mechanisms by which soft drinks may affect vascular events are unclear. There is a need for further research before any conclusions can be drawn regarding the potential health consequences of diet soft drink consumption,” Gardener concluded.

The research appeared online in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, published by Springer.

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He said the country is home to nearly three million cancer patients.

“In India people pay money to become a cancer patient,” remarked the 59-year-old Chaturvedi, referring to the rising consumption of tobacco products such as gutkha, which contribute to some 30 percent of total cancer deaths.”In tobacco, there are 300 cancer chemicals and 4,000 harmful chemicals but people love to buy tobacco products to become victims of mouth or throat cancer,” said Chaturvedi, who has served India’s Armed Forces Medical Services for 32 years.

He said other factors that have led to a rise in cancer cases are “people’s unplanned daily routines, liking for fast food and Western lifestyle, mainly in urban India”.

Vedanta Resources Plc is setting up the 350-bed Vedanta Cancer Hospital and Research Centre at Naya Raipur, the upcoming capital of Chhattisgarh adjacent to the existing capital.The hospital will come up at a sprawling 50-acre plot with an investment of nearly Rs.350 crore and is expected start functioning partially by the year-end.

“People are getting addicted to luxurious lifestyles and avoid physical work. There is hardly any space for exercise or walking in their daily schedules, but they have created a lot of space for liquor and tobacco,” said Chaturvedi, who has also served as executive director of Bhagwan Mahavir Cancer Hospital and Research Centre, Jaipur.

He said the number of breast cancer patients too is rising in India, with women who “prefer late child birth and hate to breastfeed” being particularly vulnerable.”There is a perception that cancer is not curable, but it is very much curable if it is diagnosed in early stages, when the tumours are very small in size. But India lacks a good public healthcare system and the majority of cancer patients die because they get medical access only in an advanced stage,” he observed.

He added that 50 percent of all forms of cancer are curable if treatment is provided in time, but in rural India, patients waste their most precious time with local doctors who lack facilities of diagnosis and finally turn to bigger hospitals only in the last stages.

“In India, 70 percent cancer patients get treatment very late. The government too is responsible for it as it has no public awareness programme about cancer at the village level.”India is a rare country in the sense that it imposes 11 to 20 percent customs duty on imported cancer medical equipment, while these items actually deserve to be given incentives. But we can’t hope for a sensible decision from the country that spends roughly just one percent of its GDP on public health,” he added.

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Researchers revealed that a lack of understanding of the significance of iron could be endangering women’s health and hindering children’s performance at school.

“Switching a few meals to foods high in iron, such as steak, liver and watercress could make all the difference”, the Daily Express reported.“The high rate of iron deficiency among women in a developed country like the UK is a real concern,” said TV doctor and health campaigner Christian Jessen.“The side effects are subtle and can creep on up you – you can end up feeling tired, lethargic with no get up and go.”

According to the National Diet and Nutrition Survey, conducted by YouGov for industry body MeatMatters, a quarter of British women and teenage girls suffer from a low intake of iron.

Less than a third of the 2,000 women polled were aware of the fact that lack of iron could decrease a child’s attention span and learning ability.

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 Luteolin is a flavonoid commonly found in fruit and vegetables. This compound has been shown in laboratory conditions to have anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant and anti-cancer properties but results from epidemiological studies have been less certain.

New research showed that luteolin is able to inhibit the activity of cell signaling pathways (IGF and PI3K) important for the growth of cancer in colon cancer cells.

 Colon cancer cells have elevated levels of IGF-II compared to normal colon tissues. It is believed that this part of mechanism drives uncontrolled cell division and cancer growth.Researchers from Korea showed that luteolin was able to block the secretion of IGF-II by colon cancer cells and within two hours decreased the amount of receptor (IGF-IR) precursor protein. Luteolin also reduced the amount of active receptor (measured by IGF-I dependent phosphorylation).

Luteolin inhibited the growth stimulatory effect of IGF-I and the team led by Prof Jung Han Yoon Park found that luteolin affected cell signaling pathways which are activated by IGF-I in cancer.“Luteolin reduced IGF-I-dependent activation of the cell signaling pathways PI3K, Akt, and ERK1/2 and CDC25c. Blocking these pathways stops cancer cells from dividing and leads to cell death,” Prof Jung Han Yoon Park said.“Our study, showing that luteolin interferes with cell signaling in colon cancer cells, is a step forward in understanding how this flavonoid works.“A fuller understanding of the in vivo results is essential to determine how it might be developed into an effective chemopreventive agent,” Prof Park added.

The study has been published in BioMed Central’s open access journal BMC Gastroenterology.

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It is well known that a diet high in fat, sugar and processed food is bad for our waistlines, but authors of The Happiness Diet say it is also making us depressed.They believe that what we eat can affect mood as much as it does weight.

Drew Ramsey, a clinical psychiatrist at Columbia University, and health writer Tyler Graham say that eating the right food is “the foundation of good mental health.”They point out that rates of both obesity and depression have doubled in the last decade, and blame the rise on the Standard American Diet, or the SAD Diet.

A weight-loss plan that simply cuts fat and calories is a recipe for failure, they say, and without natural mood-boosters such as magnesium, vitamin B12 and conjugated linoleic acid, we are less likely to feel happy and therefore successful.

Instead, a diet rich in ‘good’ fats, like olive oil, whole grains, vegetables and quality meat can benefit both out minds and our waistlines because, by feeling more satisfied, one will lose weight effortlessly.“Focusing on getting skinny by eating a low-fat, low-calorie diet, fails for most people,” the Daily Mail quoted Dr Ramsey as telling Today.com.“Your brain is made of food, and the right foods are the foundation of good mental health. You can’t feel your best if you starve the brain,” he noted.

They also counter the argument that the food they recommend is too expensive for those on a budget.“The biggest myth out there is that eating right is expensive,” Dr Ramsey said, explaining that ordering a weekly seasonal box of produce from community-supported agriculture programmes can actually cut your weekly grocery spend.

But there’s nothing wrong in investing in your health if you do need to spend more, Graham added.

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Adrian Barnett, associate professor at Queensland University of Technology`s Institute of Health and Biomedical Innovation, led the study which looked at still and premature births over a four-year period from 2005.Barnett said a total of 101,870 births were recorded throughout the period and of these 653 or 0.6 percent were stillbirths.

“We found that increases in temperature increased the risk of stillbirth, and this was particularly true in the earlier stages of pregnancy before 28 weeks. Increased temperatures also shortened gestation times, which means more pre-term babies who often have serious long-term health problems such as cerebral palsy and impaired vision and hearing,” said Barnett.

Barnett`s study recorded weekly temperature, humidity and air pollution levels for each pregnancy.He said that the lowest risks were in the coolest weeks, and that warm temperatures with weekly means of 23°C were just as dangerous as the hottest weeks.

“Stillbirths are obviously devastating for families, and many stillbirths have an unknown cause so more research is needed to help prevent them,” Barnett said.

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“Over a three-year period, we have studied the effect of taking different alginate doses. We are able to demonstrate that the healthy subjects who took alginates and were also allowed to eat as much as they wanted felt less hungry and ate less than the subjects not drinking fibre drinks with alginates,” Morten Georg Jensen, a PhD student, said.

Dietary fibres in seaweeds helps to lose weight

The 12-week study conducted by the researchers included 96 overweight men and women. 48 subjects drank a specially designed drink with alginates three times daily before each main course as a supplement to an energy-reduced diet. The other 48 subjects drank a placebo drink without alginates.

The 80 subjects who completed the study achieved a far larger weight loss with alginate treatment than those drinking a similar drink without alginates.On an average, the subjects in the seaweed fibre drink group lost 1.7 kg more than those in the placebo group. According to the researchers, this weight loss is primarily due to a decrease in body fat percentage.

‘A probable explanation of the weight loss is that the alginates form a gel in the stomach which strengthens the gastrointestinal satiety signals to the brain because the gel takes up space in the stomach. The overweight subjects thus ate less than usual,’ Jensen added.

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Eat eggs at breakfast to lose weight

London: Want to shed the flab? Go to work on an egg — it`s the best way to start the day, a new study has claimed.For decades, it was feared eggs caused high blood pressure and raised cholesterol. Now, researchers at Surrey University have found that eating eggs for breakfast can help slash the calories eaten at lunch and dinner.

Eggs keep one fuller for longer compared with other common breakfast foods, and are also better for people who want to resist afternoon snacks on biscuits, cake or chocolate, according to the researchers.

Prof Bruce Griffin, who led the study, said: “This study provides yet more evidence that eating eggs at breakfast can help keep us feeling fuller for longer and may help people to eat less at subsequent meals, thus helping with weight loss.”The study tested three typical breakfasts with the same level of calories — eggs on toast, cornflakes with milk and toast, or a croissant and orange juice.

Adding to the growing body of evidence to support eggs as a key ingredient of weight-loss diets, the researchers found volunteers felt fuller for longer and had a lower desire to eat after the egg breakfast compared with the other ones.The egg breakfast also led to a significantly lower intake of energy at lunch and evening meals compared with the other common breakfasts, the `Daily Express` reported.

Previous US research found that when women were given either an egg or bagel-based breakfast of equal calories, the egg-eating volunteers felt fuller and had less desire to eat other foods for the next 24 hours.

Another study published last year compared a three-egg breakfast and a low-fat bagel one in a group of men. It found their response to ghrelin, the only hormone known to stimulate hunger, was suppressed.