Swine flu

What is swine flu?

Swine flu is a respiratory disease that happens regularly in pigs and occasionally humans --most commonly, humans who are around pigs, but it's possible for the virus to spread from person to person. Symptoms are similar to regular flu: Fever, cough, sore throat, fatigue, body aches, headaches, chills, and these symptoms can vary from mild to severe. Like regular flu, swine flu can cause a worsening of underlying chronic conditions. This new strain also appears to cause more diarrhea and vomiting than normal flu.

Obviously, you can become ill from contact with an infected pig or environment but in human to human transmission, it happens from coming in contact with the coughing and sneezing of infected people, or physical contact, like shaking hands and then touching, say, your nose or mouth. There's no vaccine available for swine flu but generally, the same anti-viral drugs you'd use for the flu will help against swine flu and like the traditional flu, the drugs work best when taken sooner rather than later --specifically within two days of symptoms. You are contagious if you are symptomatic, and possibly for as much as seven days after the onset of such symptoms. Children might be contagious for longer periods.

Preventive measures and if you get sick:

--Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you sneeze

--Wash your hands often, especially after you cough or sneeze (alcohol based hand cleaners also work)

--If you live in an area where swine flu cases have been reported and you become ill with flu-like symptoms, contact your doctor or health care provider. They'll determine a treatment if necessary.

--If you get sick, stay home from work or school and limit contact with others to prevent further spread of the virus

More serious signs should be addressed immediately:

--In children: Fast breathing or troubled breathing, blue-ish skin color, not drinking enough fluids, not waking up or not interacting, being so irritable that the child doesn't wanna be held, or fever with a rash, or flu-like symptoms that improve and return with a fever and worse cough

--For adults: Difficulty breathing, pain in the chest or abdomen, sudden dizziness, confusion and severe or persistent vomiting.

Pig Fever

Kerala's Animal Husbandry Minister C. Divakaran Wednesday confirmed that pig fever had been diagnosed and was the cause of death of pigs at a private farminwayanad//.

This is believed to be the first reported case of the disease in the country.

"Pig fever was ascribed to the death of pigs by the Indian Veterinary Research Institute in Uttar Pradesh after samples were send to them," said Divakaran.

Reports indicate that initially the owner of the pig farm in Wayanad, about 600 km from here, kept silent about the sudden death of pigs at his farm. Later, after media reported on the possibility of the disease, samples were taken from the farm and sent to Bangalore followed by Uttar Pradesh.

"We have taken elaborate steps to see that vaccines are distributed to other pig farms in the state," said Divakaran.

Speaking to IANS, Kurian Thomas, who was instrumental in setting up the pig farm at the Mannuthy Veterinary College in Trissur, said there was no need for any panic.

"It would be foolish to start killing pigs on this count. There are vaccines that can contain the spread of the disease," he said.

According to reports, there are around 150 pig farms in Kerala with a total population of around 70,000 pigs.

(Source: IANS)

Coffee’s beauty secrets

Coffee’s good for a lot more than just that jolt of energy caffeine gives you. There are also the results of studies that come out ever so

Coffee's beauty secrets (Getty Images)

often.

They claim drinking coffee in moderate amounts (that’s four to five cups a day, according to the International Coffee Organisation) can reduce risks of Type 2 diabetes, stroke, cardiovascular diseases, colon cancer, liver cirrhosis, gallstones, skin cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.

So now that you’ve switched to coffee - using real beans, not that instant powder - remember to save the grinds. They have more powers than actually advertised. All you need is a ready supply of freshly ground coffee beans.

Even celebrities believe in its powers. For proof, log on to Hollywood star Gwyneth Paltrow’s website, Goop. Click through her ‘Do’ list till you stumble upon her simple styling tips.
Dr Abhijit Desai, a dermatologist, says, “Coffee does have antioxidant properties. It’s also a vasoconstrictor as well as a diuretic (they cause a person to lose water) and is considered to be useful for reducing dark circles.”

Happy hair
Expensive bottles of shampoo and conditioner can do wonders for your hair. So can the coffee berry. Aleena Jetha, from a spa in Mumbai, offers hair protein treatments that are laced with coffee. “It has antioxidants and works against the chemicals that cause hair fall,” she says, but warns that coffee shouldn’t be applied to coloured or processed hair.
Astute recessionistas can even try some coffee therapy at home. Some experts suggest using espresso (add ground coffee to hot water and let it brew, apply the warm drink to hair and rinse out after 20 minutes). It leaves the hair looking softer and shinier.

Battle the puff
You’ve had a late night because you were out partying/were buried under a pile of work/were racing to meet a deadline. So the next day, you (naturally) have the biggest dark circles and the baddest case of puffy eyes. Here again, coffee comes to the rescue. “When
combined with Vitamin K, it’s the best cure for puffiness around the eyes,” says Dr Apratim Goel, a dermatologist. “It reduces blood supply to the area by shrinking the vessels and reduces puffiness by removing water content,” she adds.
But don’t rub ground coffee under your eyes, please. Dr Goel recommends that you use eye creams from reputed companies.

Happy skin
Instead of spending massive amounts of money on fancy exfoliating face or bodywash, use ground coffee.

Dermatologists attest to coffee’s anti-inflammatory and antioxidant properties. In fact, coffee prevents free radicals from doing the damage they do to the skin cells. “Coffee helps in the lightening and tightening of the skin,” says Goel.

It helps reduce pigmentation and is often used to brighten skin or reduce the tan in facial treatments and as part of beauty treatments.

Also, since ground coffee is coarse, it helps strip away dead cells to reveal the soft skin underneath. In fact, Paltrow says on her website that using coarsely ground coffee with Turbinado sugar and olive oil helps you cleanse your pores.

To make your own coffee-laced exfoliant, first consider your skin type. Girls with oily skin should mix ¼ cup coffee grinds with yogurt (dahi) or besan.

Fights odour
You’ve been cooking up an Italian or even Indian storm using lots of onion and garlic, and know that just soap and water will not get the smell off your fingers. So, rub some coffee - again, preferably ground - onto your hands. It’s rich, dark fragrance is more powerful than the stubborn garlic/onion stink.

Swine virus more lethal than seasonal flu

People who die after getting swine flu are up to 100 times more likely, compared to seasonal flu, to have been killed by the virus itself rather

Swine Flu (Getty Images)

than secondary causes, a top French researcher said Monday.

The findings -- published on a research-sharing platform, PLoS Currents: Influenza, vetted by flu experts -- could help health officials manage critical care resources if infection rates climb in the Northern Hemisphere's autumn and winter.

It could also provide important clues as to the new swine flu's potential virulence, said author Antoine Flahault, a leading epidemiologist and director of France's School for Advanced Studies in Public Health.

"The direct lethality due to viral pneumonia probably gives the best estimate of an influenza strain's virulence, since it may vary from strain to strain and is not due to a country's level of health development," he said.

With regular seasonal flu, which claims up to 500,000 lives each year worldwide, most deaths are attributed either to secondary bacterial infections such as pneumonia, or pre-existing chronic conditions that boost vulnerability.

Only about one-in-a-million infections result in death due to a rare condition known as acute respiratory disease syndrome (ARDS).

"ARDS is frighteningly lethal -- it is like drowning," Flahault told AFP by phone. The condition requires intensive-care treatment for an average of thee weeks. "Statistically, only one in two patients survive."

The risk factors for ADRS are poorly understood, though recent studies in the United States suggest that, among people infected with swine flu, pregnant women and the very obese are particularly at risk.

Both seasonal influenza and the new A(H1N1) virus that has swept the globe since May appear to have roughly the same mortality rate of one-to-five per 1,000 infections, though figures for the swine flu remain very sketchy.

Experts also caution that the pandemic flu could become more lethal as it continues to mutate.
But preliminary analysis of infection and mortality statistics from the French territory of New Caledonia and the Indian Ocean island nation of Mauritius suggest that the new A(H1N1) virus directly caused an ARDS fatality for every 10,000 cases, Flahault told AFP.

In New Caledonia, local health authorities have reported 30,000 infections and two deaths attributed directly to the pandemic virus.

Flahault said that some 70,000 persons have been infected in Mauritius, with seven reported deaths from ARDS, five of them confirmed.

"These surveillance data allow for a first estimate of direct lethality due to H1N1 of one-per-10,000 infections, about 100 times more than regular seasonal flu," he said.

Flahault cautioned that these are only "preliminary and rough estimates," and acknowledged that his findings -- based on a limited number of cases on two isolated islands -- may not extend to much larger, continental countries.

"But we have a terrible lack of data," he said.

"It may be useful to deliver such estimates ... as early as possible so health authorities can check availability of intensive care units and artificial ventilation devices in case of a wave of similar virulence this autumn in the northern hemisphere," he said.

Your carpet may cause cancer!

Your carpet might be putting you at a greater risk of developing cancer, warns a Respiratory

Carpet (Getty Images)

physician

Bill Musk has revealed that hessian bags used to transport deadly asbestos products were later reused as carpet underlay.

Anyone exposed to the underlay risk developing mesothelioma, an incurable cancer.

"So carpet underfelt from these bags is definitely potentially dangerous," News.com.au quoted Musk as having told ABC's 7.30 Report.

The program interviewed several people who believed some mesothelioma victims had been exposed to asbestos fibres from carpet.

A spokesman for Western Australia's Health Department has urged home renovators to take care with their carpet.

"The main thing is to not disturb it and try and get some advice as to whether there is any dust in their house," he said.

The spokesman also said that people should hire professionals to tear up carpet underlay, and thoroughly clean the house afterwards.

The program said the bags were used in carpet underlay until the 1970s, and while it was not known how many homes were affected, it could be in the tens of thousands.

Special News From Sreenilayam in

Prostate cancer patients, who also suffer from heart conditions, have increased death risk if they undergo hormone therapy, revealed a study led

Hormone therapy (Getty Images)

by an Indian-origin scientist.

Dr. Akash Nanda, from Boston, has found that when men with coronary artery disease-induced congestive heart failure or heart attack receive hormone therapy before or along with radiation therapy for treatment of prostate cancer, they have an associated increased risk of death.

His study report says that patients with localized prostate cancer have several options available for treatment, including the use of brachytherapy (treatment in which radioactive seeds are implanted in the prostate), both as monotherapy and in conjunction with external beam radiation therapy.

Neoadjuvant (treatment that is given before or with the primary treatment) hormonal therapy (HT) is used as a means for prostate gland cytoreduction (decrease in number of cells, as in a tumor) in order to eliminate pubic arch (an arch formed by the pubic bones) interference and improve the ability to perform brachytherapy.

Previous research has suggested that "hormonal therapy, when added to radiation therapy (RT) for treating unfavorable-risk prostate cancer, leads to an increase in survival except possibly in men with moderate to severe comorbidity [co-existing illnesses]. However, it is unknown which comorbid conditions eliminate this survival benefit," the authors write.

Dr. Nanda his colleagues assessed whether neoadjuvant HT use in men with prostate cancer treated with brachytherapy affects the risk of all-cause death of men with known coronary artery disease-induced conditions, including congestive heart failure and heart attack.

The researchers conducted the study on 5,077 men (median [midpoint] age, 69.5 years) with localized or locally advanced prostate cancer who were treated with or without a median of 4 months of neoadjuvant HT followed by RT between 1997 and 2006 and were followed up until July 2008.

They found that during the study period, 419 men died, out of which, 200 had no underlying comorbidity, 176 had one coronary artery disease risk factor, and 43 had a history of known coronary artery disease resulting in congestive heart failure or heart attack.

The researchers said that the analyses of the data indicated that "when considering comorbidity groups separately, neoadjuvant HT use was not associated with an increased risk of all-cause mortality in men with no comorbidity or a single coronary artery disease risk factor after median follow-ups of 5.0 years and 4.4 years, respectively."

But, for men with coronary artery disease-induced congestive heart failure or heart attack, after a median follow-up of 5.1 years, neoadjuvant HT use was associated with nearly twice the risk of all-cause mortality.

"The clinical significance of this finding is that for men with favorable-risk prostate cancer and a history of congestive heart failure or myocardial infarction who require neoadjuvant HT solely to eliminate pubic arch interference, alternative strategies such as active surveillance or treatment with external beam radiation therapy or prostatectomy should be considered.

"However, for men with unfavourable-risk prostate cancer who require HT in addition to radiation therapy to take advantage of its survival benefit, appropriate medical evaluation prior to initiation should facilitate clinicians in balancing the relative risks against the benefits of HT use," said the researchers

The study has been published in the latest issue of JAMA.