The Health Blog

WebMD reports about a mysterious skin problem is erupting all over the US — and it’s caught the CDC’s attention. It’s been called Morgellons disease, and health officials don’t know what to make of it. Currently, the CDC is making investigations about this rare skin disorder.

How big this problem is?
It was said that more than 11,000 people in the U.S. and elsewhere have reported to have this disease.

How do you know you have the disease?
Patients complaints of disturbing sensations of insect-like crawling, stinging or biting on or under the skin, skin rashes and lesions that do not heal, fiber-like filaments, granules or crystals that appear on or under the skin or that can be extracted from lesions.

Other manifestations include joint, muscle and connective tissue pain, including fibromyalgia, debilitating fatigue and cognitive dysfunction, including difficulty with concentration, short-term memory, and attention.

Reuters – More than 100 students and teachers from a school in Bangladesh have been admitted to hospital after suffering convulsions, police said on Saturday.

The cause of their sudden illness was being investigated.

The victims fell ill at Adiabad School and College near Narshingdi district town, 55 km (34 miles) northeast of the capital Dhaka, a police inspector said.

Twenty-three people died in Bangladesh in 2004 from a mysterious disease later diagnosed as an encephalitis, or inflammation of the brain caused by a viral infection. Dozens more were infected with the disease, which some had feared was bird flu.

Start with limiting your young girl’s television watching. Of course, this is easier said than done. Studies show television programs and advertising can have a negative effect on viewers. Television shows targeted toward children are mixed with many advertising messages. Some of these messages are very subtle, while other messages are quite clear.

Of course we cannot blame the media for everything. We can, however, realize that too much television may negatively affect our children’s self esteem and confidence. For example, children who learn at a young age that food equals happiness, may have problems with body image later in life. Television advertising and programs present ongoing messages to young children that “things” are the solutions to problems and the route to happiness. These messages only exaggerate feelings of low self worth if a child does not possess all these “things,” or the “right things.”

Recently there have been a scare about the possible transmission of an extremely resistant strain of tuberculosis to fellow flight passengers of a known patient with this disease. The whole world was scared about the news, should we be scared, too? Medical News Today answers all your questions about this disease:

1. How can an ordinary TB transformed into XDR-TB?

TB can usually be treated with a course of four standard, or first-line, anti-TB drugs. If these are misused or mismanaged, multidrugresistant TB (MDR-TB) can develop. MDR-TB takes longer to treat with second-line drugs, which are more expensive and have more side-effects. If these drugs are also misused or mismanaged, extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) can develop. Because XDR-TB is resistant to first- and second-line drugs, treatment options are seriously limited and so are the chances of cure.

May 29, 2007 — The CDC today announced that a U.S. traveler may have put his fellow fliers at risk for a potentially deadly form of drug-resistant tuberculosis.

The traveler, an unnamed man from Atlanta, has extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis (XDR TB), which is rare but can cause serious illness and death.

XDR TB is an infectious disease spread from person to person through the air. But unlike most tuberculosis cases, XDR TB resists the first and second preferred drug treatments.

While XDR TB is rare, it can cause severe illness and death and is an emerging problem worldwide, CDC director Julie Gerberding, MD, MPH, told reporters in a news conference.

In light of the man’s condition, the CDC issued its first federal quarantine order since 1963 for the patient. He is under medical isolation in Atlanta and will remain quarantined until public health officials deem him no longer a public health threat.

The CDC is also encouraging other passengers on the man’s flights to get tested for tuberculosis.
Patient’s Flights

A study published in the New England Journal found out that the same virus that causes cervical cancer, which is the human papillomavirus or HPV, increases the risk of throat cancer for both men and women engaging in oral sex.

The study involved 100 patients with throat cancer and 200 without it, found that those infected with the human papillomavirus (HPV) were 32 times as likely to develop one form of oral cancer than those free of the virus. This makes it clear that oral HPV infection is a risk factor for throat cancer. The research suggests that unprotected oral sex is a major reason people are contracting throat cancer — not just smoking and excessive alcohol consumption, as previously believed.

LONDON – In an “extraordinary development” in the fight against AIDS, a medical journal article published Friday says that conclusive data shows there is no question circumcision reduces men’s chances of catching HIV by up to 60 percent.

The question now is how to put that fact to work to combat AIDS across Africa.

The findings were first announced in December, when initial results from two major trials — in Kenya and Uganda — showed promising links between circumcision and HIV transmission. However, those trials were deemed so definitive that the tests were halted early.

The full data from the trials, carried out by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, were published Friday in The Lancet.

A recent study found out that smoking causes long-lasting changes in the brain similar to changes seen in animals when they are given cocaine, heroin and other addictive drugs. These changes are linked to two enzymes found on brain cells or neurons. These enzymes help the neurons use chemical signals such as those made by the message-carrying compound dopamine, and they are found in greater quantity in smokers and former smokers.

“The data show that there are long-lasting chemical changes in the brains of humans,” said Michael Kuhar of Emory University in Atlanta, who was not involved in the study.

“The chemical changes alone suggest a physiological basis for nicotine addiction.” Yahoo! Health News

Tuberculosis, otherwise known as “TB”, is said to be one of the oldest diseases known to affect humans. The disease is more prevalent in developing countries (most areas in Asia and Africa). Here are some of the important things you need to know about tuberculosis:

1. The diseases is caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, a species of bacteria which is highly pathogenic to humans.

2. M. tuberculosis is most commonly transmitted from a patient with infectious pulmonary tuberculosis to other persons by droplet nuclei, which are aerosolized by coughing, sneezing or speaking. The tiny droplets dry rapidly; the smallest (<5 to 10 μm in diameter) may remain suspended in the air for several hours and may gain direct access to the terminal air passages when inhaled.

Facts and Statistics:

Current statistics say that about 60% of Filipino men smoke and more than half of Filipino households are not smoke-free. As many as 40% of Filipino adolescent boys smoke and mostly began in their teens. Every year, there are about 20,000 smoking-related deaths in the country. Many vendors of cigarettes are children. Sadly, there are no laws prohibiting minors from buying or selling cigarettes.

Effects of Smoking:

Cardiovascular Diseases: Recent statistical studies say that smoking is the most prevalent risk factor of cardiovascular diseases including heart attack and stroke among Filipinos.

Cancer: Tobacco contains nicotine, carcinogens, and other toxins capable of causing gum disease and oral cancer. It has also been shown that incidences of cancers of the lung, larynx, esophagus, pancreas, kidney and urinary bladder are increased in smokers.