Ankh Rah's Healthy Living Guide: December 2019

Tuesday, 31 December 2019

Massive increase in vitamin D supplements to sun-starved children!

Our children are so starved of vitamin D, the 'sunshine vitamin', that doctors are handing out more supplements than ever before—and prescriptions for the vitamin have jumped 25-fold in the last 10 years.

Children deficient in the vitamin can suffer seizures and rickets, and high levels are needed to maintain healthy teeth, bones and muscles.

But a combination of 'safe sun' advice—where almost any exposure to sunlight is considered dangerous—and a life spent indoors has meant an entire generation of young children is deficient in the vitamin.

As a result, family doctors have stepped in and are prescribing the supplements. Reports that cover 723 surgeries in the UK have found that 12,277 children were given prescriptions for the first time, suggesting a 25-fold jump between 2008 and 2016.

However, only a third of the children had symptoms of vitamin D deficiency, which can also include aches and pain, tiredness and fatigue, and doctors hadn't tested for any deficiency in most of the cases.

References

(Source: BMJ Open, December 3, 2019)

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Friday, 20 December 2019

Plastic teabags release 12 billion particles into each cup!

Plastic teabags release nearly 12 billion micro-plastics into every cup we drink—and these could be interfering with our behaviour and neurodevelopment.

The teabags, which are often pyramid-shaped, also release 3.1 billion nanoparticles, which are even smaller.

The bags, which were introduced by tea manufacturers around 10 years ago, use polypropylene as a sealing plastic—but when heated with boiling water, they are releasing billions of particles of plastic into the cup, say researchers from McGill University in Canada.

They reviewed four commercial teas and tested the impact of the plastics on a water flea, or Daphnia. The fleas swam more erratically and even their body shape started to change.

But nobody is sure what effect they have on people's health, although the levels released by the teabags are thousands of times above current safety levels. The McGill researchers fear drinking numerous cups of tea made from plastic bags could cause behavioural and developmental problems.

"There's been very little research done on human health and toxicity of microplastics, especially on ingesting at these levels," said lead researcher Nathalie Tufenkji. The World Health Organization has estimated that two pints of water in plastic bottles has tens to hundreds of particles—far below those seen with plastic teabags.

References

(Source: Environ Sci Technol, 2019; 53, 21, 12300-12310)

Tuesday, 17 December 2019

Most 'pure' blood for transfusions contains traces of drugs!

Coffee is in our blood, and so too are pharmaceutical drugs—suggesting that 'pure' blood used in transfusions isn't so pure after all.

People having a transfusion are likely to also get a shot of caffeine and a variety of prescription drugs.

The chances of receiving contaminated blood are highly likely, say researchers who discovered that each of the 18 batches they analysed contained some contamination.

The most common contaminant was coffee, found in each of the 18 'pure blood' samples, but most of them also contained traces of cough medicine and an anti-anxiety drug.

Researchers from Oregon State University specifically tested for three drugs—Xanax, an anti-anxiety drug, dextromethorphan, an over-the-counter cough suppressant, and tolbutamide, a remedy for type 2 diabetes.

The researchers say there is a good chance that traces of other pharmaceuticals were also in the samples, but they hadn't tested for those.

Although caffeine was more a reflection of society than being a health risk, the fact that powerful drugs were found in 'pure' blood was more concerning, the researchers said. "The drugs in there could be an issue for patients," said researcher Luying Chen.

References

(Source: Journal of Pharmaceutical and Biomedical Analysis, 2019; 112983)

Monday, 9 December 2019

Second herpes virus suspected of triggering MS!

Multiple sclerosis (MS) could be triggered by a viral infection, and specifically of several herpes viruses.

MS is an autoimmune disease that attacks the central nervous system—but scientists have been mystified as to why it starts.

The Epstein-Barr herpes virus has been suspected as being a trigger, but new research has discovered it could be the result of several herpes viruses acting in concert, and with the herpes virus 6 strain playing a key role.

MS sufferers are carriers of the herpes 6A strain, and it could be this that kick-starts the disease, say researchers from the Karolinska Institute. If they had a herpes 6 infection when they were children, they were more than twice as likely to develop MS as adults, the researchers discovered after analysing blood samples taken from 8,700 MS sufferers and comparing them to 7,200 healthy controls. They also had a 55 percent higher risk of having antibodies against the 6 strain.

Although the Epstein-Barr virus still seems to be linked to MS, the risk is magnified when the sufferer is also a carrier of the herpes 6 virus.

References

(Source: Frontiers in Immunology, 2019; doi: 10.3389/fimmu.2019.02715

Thursday, 5 December 2019

Cannabis halves the severity of headaches and migraine attacks, a major new study has discovered.

Sufferers reported a reduction of 47 percent in the severity of headaches and 49 percent in migraine pain.

Although many people use cannabis for pain relief, very few studies have researched it. One clinical trial concluded that cannabis was more effective than ibuprofen.

Researchers from Washington State University recruited 1,300 who suffer from frequent headaches and 653 migraine sufferers. They all used an app to report when they suffered an attack, when they took cannabis and the effect it had, in 'real time'. In all, the two groups lodged nearly 20,000 reports.

There was no reporting of 'overuse headache', where headaches can become more severe over time and is often seen with more conventional treatments, although the researchers noted that the participants were starting to take larger doses, suggesting they were developing a tolerance to the drug.

Although cannabis oil was a more effective pain-reliever than the cannabis flower, the researchers said the different levels of THC (tetrahydrocannabinol) and CBD (cannabidiol) used by the participants wasn't a factor.

References

(Source: Journal of Pain, 2019; doi: 10.1016/j.pain.2019.11.001)

Monday, 2 December 2019

The drugs causing falls and fractures in the elderly!

$The drugs causing falls and fractures in the elderly image$

Falls and fractures are common problems among the elderly—but the real culprit isn't always old age, it can also be the drugs they're taking.

Many of the drugs routinely prescribed to the elderly—opioid painkillers, antidepressants, antacids and sleeping drugs—either weaken the bones or increase the chances of a fall or do both.

Researchers from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth analysed the records of around 2.5 million older people who had been prescribed any of the 21 most common fracture-associated drugs (FADs) to see how many of them subsequently suffered a hip fracture.

The rate was highest among those who were taken the most FADs, and the most commonly prescribed were opioid painkillers, which were taken by 55 percent of the group, followed by diuretics, prescribed to 40 percent of them.

Taking even one of these drugs doubles the risk of a fracture, the researchers estimate, and the risk increases exponentially for every other FAD being taken. Taking two FADs triples the risk and taking three quadruples it. The effects can be twice as bad in people who already have osteoporosis.

The most dangerous combinations—and the ones most likely to lead to a fall or fracture—were the opioids and sedatives, or opioids and diuretics, or opioids and PPIs (proton pump inhibitors), for indigestion.

If the drugs are optional, the elderly patient should seriously consider stop taking them, the researchers say, and it's a consideration that is even more pressing if two or more FADs are being prescribed.

References

(Source: JAMA Network Open, 2019; 2: e1915348)