Alzheimer's disease.

The 11 specialists claimed only 3% of the annual NHS research budget was aimed at dementia. But the government said it was looking to improve care.

The open letter to Mr Johnson says that the NHS "may well be unsustainable" as the number of people with dementia increases.

They wrote: "As the NHS turns 60, the question isn't whether it will last a further 60 years, but if it can survive the next 20.

"The government must greatly increase dementia research now."

The signatories included Professor Simon Lovestone, from King's College London, Professor Nick Fox, from University College London, and Professor John Mayer, from Nottingham University.

National strategy

Rebecca Wood, the chief executive of the Alzheimer's Research Trust, said that a quarter of the Department of Health's £700m research and development money was spent on cancer research, more than six times the figure received by dementia researchers.

"If underinvestment persists, the economic consequences arising from dementia care costs will be catastrophic."

A spokesman for the King's Fund, whose recent report predicted the doubling of costs for dementia care, said: "There is no cure for dementia.

"Unless there is a major breakthrough in drugs to arrest the course of this illness, there will be a great need for extra care and support, some of it quite intense."

But a Department of Health spokesman said that the first ever "National Dementia Strategy", which the government is currently working on, would improve early diagnosis, treatment and care.

She said that "significant funding" had already been made in dementia research, with the department investing £20m over five years from 2006 in a national research network on dementia and other neurodegenerative diseases.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7458410.stm

Prenatal (Ultrasound) Portraits Considered Unsafe

If used properly, ultrasound technology can be an invaluable diagnostic tool for monitoring the growth and development of the baby. But ultrasounds are also being used for prenatal portraits, an unborn baby's first photograph, in a controversial and possibly unlawful practice.

Although using ultrasound technology is generally considered to be safe, it's not without some risks because the energy from the ultrasound could theoretically affect the unborn child. The prenatal portraits entail high intensities of ultrasound and long times of exposure.

A chain of ultrasound imaging centers called Fetal Fotos describes "your ultrasound experience" on its website as follows: "Imagine the bonding that occurs when you first see your unborn child. ...Enjoy our private, relaxed, and fun atmosphere with family and friends at any of our convenient locations nationwide." Another chain called A Peek in the Pod, says, "State-of-the-art ultrasound technology is used to provide 3D imaging of your child, often sharp enough to reveal your baby's features within still images." The fetal photographs usually cost between $195 and $295, and insurance companies do not cover these pictures.

The Federal Government and some medical associations have issued strict warnings against the prenatal portraits, but there is little action being taken behind the tough talk. There is concern that the technicians who are administering the ultrasound may not be properly trained. They may not see an abnormality or they could misinterpret the image and not know how to treat or counsel the parents. Companies that provide prenatal portraits, however, downplay these concerns.

The Food and Drug Administration's stance is "that the people that promote, sell, or lease the equipment for making the fetal videos should know that we view this as an unapproved use of a medical device." A spokeswoman for the FDA also said that the agency is encouraging states to take action against the pictures because the states regulate the practice of medicine. She also added that the FDA does not approve of these ultrasound devices being used for the fetal videos but they won't regulate the users.

The American Registry of Diagnostic Medical Sonographers (ARDMS) tests the ultrasound practitioners for proficiency and issues their credentials. The organizations director or communications, Dana Murphy, says that they support the position of another professional society, the American Institute of Ultrasound in Medicine, which "discourages the non-medical use of ultrasound for psychosocial or entertainment purposes." The ARDMS will take action only if someone falsely claims to be certified to use the equipment, otherwise, Murphy says, "we just disapprove and discourage" the practice of making the prenatal portraits.

The medical advisors at Consumer Reports on Health, a newsletter published monthly by Consumer Union, cautions any expecting parents not to take a chance with the prenatal videos. There is no point is purposely exposing the mother and unborn child to unnecessary ultrasound energy if it isn't medically necessary. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist also discourages the use of the ultrasound technology and equipment solely to create a keepsake photo or video.

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Parents unharmed by 'false-positive' hearing test

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Parents do not seem to suffer lingering anxiety after routine newborn screening falsely suggests their child may have a hearing problem, a study has found.

In the U.S. and Europe, infants are screened soon after birth for potential hearing problems. If the screening test suggests they may have hearing loss, further testing is done to confirm or rule out a problem.

Newborn hearing screening is considered beneficial because without it, children's hearing problems would typically go undetected until they are between 1 and 2 years old, at which point their language development would already be delayed.

The problem is that this screening, like all medical screening tests, can yield "false positive" results. In fact, most infants who "fail" their hearing screening test are shown to have normal hearing when more-extensive diagnostic testing is done.

To see whether such false-positives cause parents lasting anxiety, Dutch researchers surveyed 442 parents six months after their infant had undergone routine hearing screening.

The group included 288 parents whose newborn had passed the first test and 154 whose infant had inconclusive or positive screening results; in all cases, these infants were later shown to have normal hearing.

Overall, the study found, parents in the two groups had similar results on a standard test of chronic anxiety -- suggesting the false-positive test results did not do parents lasting harm.

The finding adds to evidence that "the advantages of the universal newborn hearing screening are larger than the disadvantages," lead researcher Dr. Kitty van der Ploeg, of the research institute TNO in Leiden, the Netherlands, told Reuters Health.

She and her colleagues report their study results in journal Archives of Disease in Childhood.

Despite the generally positive findings, though, some parents were concerned by their child's false-positive screening results. Six months after the test, the researchers found, 10 percent to 15 percent of these parents said they were worried about their child's hearing, versus 4 percent of parents whose newborn had passed the screening test.

Van der Ploeg said that while false-positives cannot be eliminated, it might be possible to reduce them. In this study, infants with false-positive results were slightly older than those who passed the screening test. Other research has similarly suggested that the odds of false-positive results depend partially on an infant's age.

In the Netherlands, van der Ploeg noted, it is generally recommended that newborns have their hearing screened when they are between 4 and 7 days old.

But since there will always be some false-positives, she added, screeners should explain the hearing screening process to parents in a way that would minimize their worries.

By Amy Norton

Tight Rein on Blood Sugar Has No Heart Benefits

Two large studies involving more than 21,000 people found that people with Type 2 diabetes had no reduction in their risk of heart attacks and strokes and no reduction in their death rate if they rigorously controlled their blood sugar levels.

The results provide more details and bolster findings reported in February, when one of the studies, by the National Institutes of Health, ended prematurely. At that time, researchers surprised diabetes experts with the announcement that study participants who were rigorously controlling their blood sugar actually had a higher death rate than those whose blood sugar control was less stringent.

Now the federal researchers are publishing detailed data from that study for the first time. Researchers in the second study, from Australia and involving participants from 20 countries, are also publishing their results on blood sugar and cardiovascular disease. That study did not find an increase in deaths, but neither did it find any protection from cardiovascular disease with rigorous blood sugar control.

Thus both studies failed to confirm a dearly held hypothesis that people with Type 2 diabetes could be protected from cardiovascular disease if they strictly controlled their blood sugar.

It was a hypothesis that seemed almost obvious. Cardiovascular disease accounts for 65 percent of deaths among people with Type 2 diabetes. And since diabetes is characterized by high levels of blood sugar, the hope was that if people with diabetes could just get their blood sugar as close to normal as possible, their cardiovascular disease rate would be nearly normal as well.

The two studies were presented Friday in San Francisco at the annual meeting of the American Diabetes Association and will be published next week in The New England Journal of Medicine. The Journal lifted its embargoes to coincide with the presentations at the meeting. A third study, similar but smaller, by the Department of Veterans Affairs, will be presented at the meeting on Sunday.

Diabetes researchers say that the message is that patients should obtain at least moderate control of blood sugar to protect against eye, kidney and nerve disease. But for heart disease, they say, the only proven method of preventing complications is to give statins to control cholesterol, drugs to control blood pressure and aspirin to control blood clotting, and encourage people to lose weight and exercise.

The Australian study did find one advantage to strict blood sugar control — a slight reduction in new or worsening kidney disease. The rate among those with intense sugar control was 4.1 percent as compared with 5.2 percent among those with less intense control.

But researchers disagreed about whether the kidney disease effect in the Australian study was enough to advise patients to strive for rigorous blood sugar control. The Australian investigators said it was.

Others were not so sure. The kidney effect was “a modest benefit,” said Dr. David Nathan, director of the diabetes center at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. W. Douglas Weaver, president of the American College of Cardiology, agreed, saying, “It’s hard to get really excited about that data.”

And the excess deaths among patients in the intensive treatment group in the American study gave Dr. Nathan and others pause.

Researchers said it was difficult to compare the studies from the United States and Australia. For example, patients in the two studies took different drugs to lower blood sugar and lowered their blood glucose at different rates — quickly in the federal study, over a period of years in the Australian one.

Those in the federal study used a wide variety of drugs. But all those in the Australian study who were assigned to rigorous blood sugar control were required to take the diabetes drug sulfonylurea gliclazide (modified release), which is not used in the United States.

The study got its major support from Servier, the drug’s maker. Servier had no influence on the conduct of the study or the analysis or publication of its results, said Dr. Stephen MacMahon, a principal investigator and professor of cardiovascular medicine and epidemiology at the University of Sydney.

In both studies, intensive control of blood sugar meant levels of a blood protein, hemoglobin A1C, of 6 percent to 6.5 percent, and less rigorous control meant an A1C goal of around 7 percent to 7.9 percent, typical levels achieved by people with Type 2 diabetes in the United States. The intense control was difficult — participants often ended up taking multiple drugs and injecting themselves with insulin. They also risked severe hypoglycemia from blood sugar levels that plunged dangerously low.

Although the studies’ failure to prove the blood sugar/cardiovascular disease hypothesis was a huge disappointment, the result may reflect how difficult it is to change outcomes in people like the study participants, said Dr. Judith Fradkin, chief of the diabetes division at the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases. They were middle age or older and had had diabetes for years.

“You’re trying to intervene in people in whom a lot of the damage may already have been done,” Dr. Fradkin said. Younger and newly diagnosed patients may be a different story, she said, adding, “That’s the great unanswered question.”

Still, said Dr. John Buse, president for medicine and science of the diabetes association, the blood sugar/cardiovascular disease hypothesis has failed for people with established Type 2 diabetes.

For these patients, “intensive management of A1C for cardiovascular risk probably isn’t worth it,” Dr. Buse said.

By GINA KOLATA

Visitors Medical Insurance

Foreign travel can be both exciting and challenging. Travel planning calls for a lot of thought and time. Often healthcare needs of travelers are overlooked. This oversight can turn an otherwise great trip into something out of a nightmare. These are some important steps you must take before you undertake any travel:

1. See your primary care physician and discuss your needs during your foreign travel. Ensure everybody is current with immunizations. Many Asian and African nations demand proof or certificate of vaccination. These requirements can be obtained from your travel agent.

2. Study your current health insurance plan to determine if it offers adequate coverage overseas. If it is not clear check with your insurance company about what is covered and excluded during overseas travel.

3. If your current health plan doesn't offer coverage for medical expenses and medical evacuation it is prudent to consider foreign visitor insurance. If your travels are short term then you can consider a visitor medical insurance policy. If you are out on a long trip spanning several years then you can consider a more comprehensive international health insurance plan offering regular pregnancy and preventive healthcare benefits.

The premium for the plan is influenced by your age, the type of benefits and the length of coverage. It is best to speak to an experienced visitors insurance professional. Ask the right questions and ensure you protect your most important asset - health.

By Chiranth Nataraj

New Hope for Cocaine Withdrawal

Scientists have found that one reason cocaine addicts find it so hard to kick their drug habit, even after prolonged abstention, is that the craving for cocaine does not diminish but actually intensifies throughout the first 60 days after use of the drug is stopped. This obviously presents the addict with an enormous potential for relapse.

Through ground-breaking research, scientists have discovered what they believe will lead to relief for addicts through the development of medications able to decrease the risk of relapse, and improve the addict's chances for recovery from this powerfully addictive drug. The breakthrough project used rats in the trials, and enabled lead investigator Marina E. Wolf, Ph.D., who is Professor and Chair of Neuroscience at the Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in North Chicago, to determine that after prolonged periods of forced abstinence from cocaine self-administration there was a marked increase in the number, and a distinct change in the composition, of newly formed proteins, called AMPA glutamate receptors, in the area of the brain that is known to be responsible for a person's feelings of motivation and reward.

She and her investigators noted that the new, and more plentiful, receptors were actually providing stronger stimulation to that part of the brain than normal receptors do. Because of their number and the area of the brain they were active in, they, in effect, were causing a sort of rebirth and, in fact, an intensification of those cocaine-related cues; those cocaine related memories of people, places and things that are found to haunt the reformed addict long after abstinence from the drug.

Dr. Wolf and her investigators were able to block these receptors and were able to substantially decrease the intensified cue-induced drug craving in the rat model. This is what leads the scientists to the belief that medications can be developed to block the same receptors, and thus the continuing drug cravings, in humans without interfering with the normal AMPA receptors, which are important for normal brain functions such as learning and memory.

This research was supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse which is part of the National Institutes of Health, and was published in the May 25, 2008 issue of the journal Nature.

By Jody Cross

10 Tips to Maintain Health and Beauty

Beauty, health, and nutrition are all integrated. If you eat a balanced diet you will be able to maintain your physique and glowing beauty externally and good health internally. A balanced diet is one that provides all the nutrients you need, the right amount of proteins, carbohydrates, and fat.

To achieve goals you need to ensure a good balance in your diet, introduce variety into your meals, and practice moderation. The basis of nutrition lies in your height, weight, dimensions, and your daily energy needs. Once you know this you can compute what your daily calorific needs are and set goals for weight maintenance, gain, or loss. By regulating your diet you can be active as well as happy.

You must:

Eat sensibly. Include a variety of foods in your diet such that the 40 nutrients that are required by your body are present. Make use of a food pyramid and calorie chart to prepare tasty and nutritious meals. Follow the "Dietary Guidelines for Americans" issued each year.

Eat plenty of whole grains, fruits, and vegetables. They will supply you with essential vitamins, minerals, and protection from several diseases.

Maintain your weight at a healthy level. Successful weight management is one of the golden keys to good health. By doing is you will lower considerably the risk of many diseases like hypertension, diabetes, heart diseases, cancer, and osteoporosis.

Learn self control, eat moderate portions. The secret lies in eating everything but in small portions. Don't give way to gluttony or greed.

Make a time-table for your meals and how many calories will be in each meal. Never fast, starve yourself, or skip a meal. Eat when your body demands sustenance but not huge quantities.

Practice moderation. Good health does not lie in eliminating carbohydrates or fats. Include all your favorite foods but balance them with the rest of your diet. If you indulge your taste buds by eating pizza one day, then try and do so at lunch time, never eat pizza late at night. Ask for low fat cheese and healthy toppings. Eat just enough to satisfy your craving not all 12 slices. Get a few friends to share you sin. The days you indulge, eat sensibly the rest of the day—salads and fruits will help you make up for the binge.

Be sure your meals each day include all the food groups.

Plan to exercise every day. Either walk or take up aerobics, dancercise, or join a gym. Exercise will not just burn calories but put a glow into your skin, tone your muscles, and strengthen your bones. Exercise also removes accumulated toxins from your body.

Maintain a dairy in which you record your goals, and what you eat each day. Review your week objectively and create a table that shows at a glance what you did right and what you did wrong. This will help keep you on the right track.

Celebrate each victory. Give yourself a present or take yourself out every time you achieve a goal.

By eating healthy, one can live a complete and rounded life without diseases, reduce stress greatly, look and feel great, be happy from within and without, age well, produce healthy progeny, and live life to the fullest.

Related Health Blog: http://mingxin2009.k2free.com/

By Paul Wilson