Not everyone is a fan of needles. In fact, there are probably more people who are averse to having needles stuck into their skins. This isn’t surprising as needles are most always associated with pain, sickness, and medication.
Since it’s a part of many medical procedures however, there’s no way around getting shots until new ways of dispensing specific medicines or vaccines can be found. This might soon change though thanks to the medical researchers at Georgia Tech and Emory University who have teamed up to create a flu vaccine that is painless, convenient, and hassle-free.
“We’re developing a technology we like to call microneedles. These are needles that we make by using the technology that’s used to make integrated circuits for computers,” said Georgia Tech Professor Mark Prausnitz.
Prausnitz says microscopic needles are coated with flu vaccine that can be barely seen or felt. It allows the vaccine to get into the body.
“Without those tiny needles, if you put the flu vaccine on your skin, none would go in,” according to Prausnitz.
Emory University’s Dr. Ioanna Skountzou says the technology is promising and easy to use. “This is something we hope to put in practice in the very near future. You can apply the patch yourself like a band aid, keep it on for only a short period of time and then dispose it.”
Learn more about this breakthrough here.
Photo credits: Ruud de Jong
A Harvard Medical School study indicate that it may be possible to stop type 1 diabetes and renew the insulin-producing beta cells that are destroyed by the disease. The scientists used a mix of three drugs designed to tame the out-of-control immune response attacking the pancreas, and an enzyme called alpha 1 anti-trypsin, which is normally produced by the body to ease inflammation.. This has only been tested on mice so far but trials with human patients will be run soon.
At the same time, progress is also being done towards a cure for type 1 diabetes in Sydney, Australia. Scientists from Westmead Hospital transplanted islet cells from a donor’s pancreas into patients’ livers, where the new cells began to produce insulin. This procedure was successfully done on eight patients and the results were very promising: the patients’ need for insulin shots dropped dramatically, to zero in some cases.
Recent studies involving the use of radiofrequency ablation in treating liver cancer have yielded positive results. Radiofrequency ablation is the removal of unwanted tissue from the body using radiofrequency energy. This method is also used in treating coronary diseases, varicose veins and in somnoplasty.
Although the study was limited to tumors less than four centimeters, the application of radiofrequency ablation was effective on patients with liver cancer where surgery was not possible.
In the said study conducted in Charité, Campus Benjamin Franklin, Berlin, Germany complete destruction of tumors occurred in 66 out of 67 cases where multipolar radiofrequency ablation was used to treat liver cancer. Fifty-two percent of the patients are tumor free, while seventy-eight percent are still living after four years. Only in eight cases that reablation was needed from the 67 cases.
Vitamin D is significant when it comes to the development of our organs. This vitamin is the regulator of calcium and phosphorous which is essential for the development of our bones. Vitamin D is also been said to be able to play a role in preventing diabetes and coronary diseases. The most recent findings on the benefits of vitamin D, though not yet extensively identified, is its ability to prevent the development of cancerous cells.
Calcitriol, a hormone of vitamin D is said to cause the death of cancerous cells. Several studies show that regular intake of vitamin D can deter the development of colon, breast, ovarian cancer and even prostate cancer. The link between vitamin D and colon cancer has produced the most interest among scientists and those in the medical field because it has shown a great potential.
It has always been believe that atherosclerosis which is the buildup of plaque in the arteries, was irreversible. But this year, heart experts has done something that was thought to be almost impossible, they were able to shrink the fatty clogs blocking the heart’s arteries of patients by around 7 percent only with the use of maximum dosage of Crestor which is a cholesterol-lowering medication. Heart medications before are only taken to slow or stop the narrowing of arteries. But this new finding raises the possibility that you can actually reverse the plaque accumulation that starts even as early as childhood.
For those of you who spend almost 12 hours in front of your computer, there is a specialized specs to prevent eye irritation. Some of the people who spend lots of time in front of a computer screen can suffer from eye problems that may feel like sands in the eyes and makes your vision blurry and teary. It is called a computer vision syndrome. So an ophthalmologist, Richard Yee, saw how people suffer from dry eyes, light sensitivity and difficulty to focus at the computer that made him create special specs. It’s like having your eyes in the sauna making it comfortable for the eyes and screens out wind, drafts, dusts and anything in the environment that can irritate your eyes.
The swine flu pandemic came and spread like wildfire making it one of the fastest spreading viruses in human history, thanks to modern air travel that took it to all corners of the world within 24 hours. Now in the pandemic stage, the virus has skipped the containment phase for virologists were caught off guard for it had already crossed borders when it was discovered and identified. As to problems associated with Swine flu, the much used Tami-flu, the anti-viral drug developed during the spread of the bird flu virus is proving to be quite ineffective against the swine flu virus and there has already been a recorded case of reverse infection where swine were infected by an active virus from a human host, first identified in the UK. Read the rest of this entry »
Before the much known swine-flu there was already a problem associated with a strain of the flu virus that crossed the species barrier, bird flu. Now there have been several strains and the spread of this deadly disease (virologists are saying this is virus is more dangerous than swine flu even if it never reached pandemic status). Though Bird flu is known to be more dangerous than swine flu, it has a higher mortality rate compared to the swine flu pandemic that has also seen a lot of deaths yet they are still way lower than bird-flu. There is another problem that has shown up during the course of two pandemics, the evolution of these viruses that are now making them quite immune to the vaccines that are under development. Australian researchers have been hard at work developing a vaccine for all the strains of bird-flu that have been identified yet they have not yet been released for the public to use due to a need for further research and testing as to the effectivity of the vaccine. This fact also gives clue to the utter complexity bird flu has for swine flu already has a viable vaccine under human testing and is expected to come out of the lab by November this year, bird flu has yet to come out with an effective vaccine.
Researchers have found a more effective way of strengthening the bones of elderly women with the use of DHEA, Vitamin D and Calcium supplements that would help curb the debilitating effects of Osteoporosis. As the body ages, the bones tend to lose integrity and slow in their cell production leaving them brittle and weak, prone to injuries. Women are advised to take these three compounds in the form of supplements to help the body regenerate bone tissue as it slows down in middle to late life to promote healthier bones thus not limiting activity due to age. Most elderly women tone down activity due to their bones which have a nasty ability to deteriorate faster than males of the same age. Read the rest of this entry »
Many of today’s super-bugs have evolved resistance to some of our most potent and safest antibiotics mainly due to misuse of such medication that is worrying medical experts. Super-bugs are called such due to their ability to survive attack from previously effective treatment regimens like the new forms of tuberculosis that are resistant to most antibiotics. Penicillin is still one of our most potent forms of antibiotics but not for long, due to resistance and utter ineffectiveness of the drug against some of the newer strains of bacteria. Drug resistant strains of Staphylococcus, Clostridium and Enterococcus are now roaming our bodies, harder to tame than previous strains due to higher tolerance of present antibiotics. Read the rest of this entry »
Since it’s a part of many medical procedures however, there’s no way around getting shots until new ways of dispensing specific medicines or vaccines can be found. This might soon change though thanks to the medical researchers at Georgia Tech and Emory University who have teamed up to create a flu vaccine that is painless, convenient, and hassle-free.