Artificial Skin Could Bring Sense of Touch to Prosthetics

By Amy Norton
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Oct. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — In a step toward giving prosthetic limbs a sense of touch, scientists have developed an artificial skin that can “feel” pressure and send those signals to brain cells.

Reporting in the Oct. 16 issue of Science, researchers say the plastic skin mimics the ability of human skin to tell the difference between a firm handshake and the dead-fish variety. It can then transmit that information to cells of the central nervous system.

So far, the principle has only been tested using brain cells from mice, and much work remains before it could be useful for people with prosthetic limbs.

“But, we know what we need to do to move this forward, and I’d estimate this could be available in three to six years,” said researcher Alex Chortos, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University, in California.

Recent years have seen major advances in the function of prosthetic limbs, and the “robotic aspects” of modern prosthetics are quite good, Chortos said.

What’s remained elusive, he said, are prosthetics that can provide the sensory feedback that real limbs do.

That’s partly because the interaction between human skin and the brain is so complex. “One hand has roughly 17,000 sensors in it,” Chortos said. And those sensors pick up different types of information.

At this point, the artificial skin developed by the Stanford team replicates one aspect of touch: the skin’s ability to detect pressure differences. The ultimate goal, Chortos said, is to develop an array of sensors that can “feel” temperature, textures and other sensations.

The artificial skin consists of two layers: The top layer is a waffled plastic that contains carbon “nanotubes,” which conduct electricity when pressure is placed on the plastic. The bottom layer acts as a circuit that receives those electrical impulses and translates them into biochemical messages that nerve cells can read.

In this study, the researchers proved that the sensory signals could be transferred to brain cells from mice.

But if the skin were to be used with prosthetic limbs, how would sensory signals reach the human brain? Chortos said the goal is to essentially allow the prosthetic to “plug in” to the nervous system.

“We see it being able to stimulate nerves that are left over after the limb amputation,” Chortos explained. “Then those signals will go to the brain.”

The current findings represent an important step toward that, said Polina Anikeeva, an assistant professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in Cambridge, Mass.

But it’s just part of the “puzzle,” she added.

“Right now, we still don’t have a technology that could feed the pressure signals back into the peripheral nerves within the remaining limb of an amputee,” said Anikeeva, who co-wrote an editorial published with the study.

“So even if we can sense touch with an electronic device,” she explained, “it is challenging to create a communication interface between this device and the nerves.”

Ultimately, Anikeeva said, any widespread use of such prosthetics would depend on people’s comfort with them.

As it is, people often opt for relatively simple prosthetic arms, she said.

That’s because more-advanced prosthetics are still “no match” for a natural limb, Anikeeva added. Similarly, a prosthetic with artificial skin would likely have to meet a high bar.

“In order to make a prosthetic ‘comfortable’ for people, it would need to be able to feel in a way that mimics the sensation in an actual limb,” Anikeeva said.

More information

The Amputee Coalition of America has more on prosthetic limbs.

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Doctors’ Prescribing Practices Key to Curbing Painkiller Abuse: CDC

THURSDAY, Oct. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Improved prescribing practices could help reduce narcotic painkiller abuse and overdose deaths from those drugs, a new U.S. government study says.

An analysis of prescription drug-monitoring programs in eight states found that a small number of doctors were responsible for most narcotic painkiller prescriptions, according to U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention researchers.

Drug overdose is the leading cause of injury-related death in the United States. Most of those deaths stem from abuse of prescription pain drugs such as Vicodin and OxyContin, stimulants and sedatives/tranquilizers, according to the CDC.

“Every day, 44 people die in American communities from an overdose of prescription opioids and many more become addicted,” CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden said in an agency news release.

“States are on the frontline of witnessing these overdose deaths. This research can help inform their prescription overdose prevention efforts and save lives,” Frieden said.

The CDC researchers analyzed 2013 data from prescription drug-monitoring programs in California, Delaware, Florida, Idaho, Louisiana, Maine, Ohio and West Virginia, which represent about one-quarter of the U.S. population.

The study found a small number of doctor who were heavy prescribers. For instance, the top 1 percent of prescribers wrote 25 percent of narcotic prescriptions in Delaware, compared with about 12 percent in Maine.

Also, prescribing practices varied widely among states, even though the conditions these drugs are meant to treat occur at similar rates, the researchers said. Doctors in some states prescribed roughly twice as many narcotic painkillers and tranquilizer/sedatives as doctors elsewhere. Stimulants, which include Adderall and Ritalin, were prescribed four times more often in certain states than others, the CDC report said.

In all eight states, the report said, narcotic painkillers were prescribed twice as often as stimulants or tranquilizers/sedatives, such as Ativan or Xanax.

Also, people who received narcotic prescriptions often received tranquilizer/sedative prescriptions, too, even though that put them at risk for harmful drug interactions, the CDC said.

The study also found that the percentage of cash payments for controlled substance prescriptions — an indicator of abuse — varied nearly threefold among the five states that collected such data.

The findings, published in the Oct. 16 issue of the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, highlight the need to improve prescribing practices, particularly for narcotics, the study authors said.

“A more comprehensive approach is needed to address the prescription opioid overdose epidemic, including guidance to providers on the risks and benefits of these medications,” Dr. Debra Houry, director of CDC’s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, said in the news release.

More information

The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about prescription drug abuse.

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U.S. Report Urges End to ‘Conversion’ Therapy for LGBT Youth

THURSDAY, Oct. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Less than a year after the Obama Administration came out against so-called “conversion” therapies for gay and lesbian youth, a new government report calls for the practice to be eliminated nationwide.

“No evidence supports the efficacy of such interventions to change sexual orientation or gender identity, and such interventions are potentially harmful,” said the authors of the report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).

“Efforts should be taken to end the practice of conversion therapy,” the report added.

Conversion therapy has already been banned in four states and the District of Columbia, while another 21 states and the U.S. Congress are considering bans. The SAMHSA report authors said that “federal regulatory action” may be used in the future to restrict use of conversion therapy for minors.

At issue is the long-held notion by some that homosexuality is a treatable “illness.” But the new report, based on a consensus of mental health experts, stresses that “same-gender sexual orientation and variations in gender identity and gender expression are a part of the normal spectrum of human diversity and do not constitute a mental disorder.”

Still, parents who are uncomfortable with a child’s professed same-sex orientation sometimes send them to “conversion therapy” centers, in the hope this will change sexual orientation toward heterosexuality.

But the SAMHSA report, released Thursday, says the treatment is useless, and the psychological stress it entails may even “put young people at risk of serious harm.”

“Family rejecting behaviors — including attempts to change an adolescent’s sexual orientation — have been linked with health risks, including suicidal behavior and risk for HIV, during young adulthood,” the experts said.

Instead, they added, what many gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgendered and questioning (LGBTQ) youth require is acceptance and support — especially from parents.

“Parental behaviors and attitudes have a significant effect on the mental health and well-being of sexual and gender minority children and adolescents,” the report’s authors said.

The SAMHSA report contains passages from people who “survived” conversion therapy. One such testimonial, from a man referred to as “Sam,” recounted his entering psychological treatment to help him recover from the trauma of conversion therapy.

“It is nearly impossible to describe walking into a therapist’s office after surviving conversion therapy,” he said. “The problem is that we need help from a system we have only known to hurt us. Hearing that I would be OK and that my new therapist could help me learn to cope with the pain of my conversion therapy experience was like getting a second chance at life.”

The SAMHSA authors stressed that eliminating conversion therapy is only one step in helping LGBTQ youth lead happy, productive lives. According to the report, there is a “still-pervasive interpersonal, institutional, and societal bias and discrimination against sexual and gender minorities” that must be addressed.

The American Psychological Association (APA) expressed its support for the SAMHSA report.

“This important report makes it clear that conversion therapy is not appropriate for dealing with sexual orientation or gender identities in children and youth,” said Judith Glassgold, associate executive director for public interest government relations.

“It provides guidance to clinicians on current science and best practices for this vulnerable population,” she added in an APA news release.

More information

The American Psychological Association offers resources for LGBTQ youth.

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Fewer Teens Smoking Cigarettes, But Twice as Many Using Pot: CDC

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, Oct. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — While worried parents may take comfort in new statistics that show smoking among American teenagers has dropped 64 percent in recent years, the same report also shows that marijuana use has doubled.

And plenty of youngsters still light up. A full 30 percent of white, black and Hispanic teens smoked cigarettes, cigars or marijuana in 2013, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. The researchers tracked teen smoking rates from 1997 to 2013.

“The nation’s remarkable progress in reducing youth smoking since 1997 is great news, but the battle is far from over,” said Vince Willmore, vice president for communications at Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids.

“This study reminds us that we know exactly what to do to further reduce smoking: increase tobacco taxes, enact smoke-free laws, fund effective prevention programs and implement hard-hitting mass media campaigns. These proven strategies must be continued and strengthened,” Willmore added.

The researchers also called for targeted prevention programs and policies that involve parents, schools, communities and the media.

Overall, the number of teens who smoked cigarettes or cigars dropped from 20.5 percent to slightly more than 7 percent, while marijuana use went from 4 percent to 10 percent, the report found.

Notably, marijuana use jumped from 51 percent to 62 percent among those teens who smoked cigarettes or cigars, the findings showed.

By 2013, black and Hispanic students made up a considerable percentage of the increase in marijuana use, the investigators found. From 2009 to 2013, marijuana use among black teens increased from just under 11 percent to nearly 17 percent, while it jumped from 8.5 percent to just over 14 percent among Hispanic teens.

“Thus, public health advances in adolescent health resulting from lower cigarette and cigar use might be attenuated by increases in marijuana use, which vary by racial/ethnic subgroup,” the CDC researchers, led by Italia Rolle, wrote in their report.

Dr. Tim McAfee, director of CDC’s Office on Smoking and Health, believes that more acceptance of marijuana as a harmless drug is driving its increased use among teens.

“Over the last 10 or 15 years, there has been a change in public perception of marijuana,” he said. “There is the idea that marijuana is not something you need to worry about.”

Because marijuana has been illegal, little is known about its long-term effects, McAfee added. “There has not been an effort [to conduct research] about the downside to marijuana use,” he said.

However, one of the downsides is its negative effect on the developing adolescent brain, McAfee said. And some teens can become dependent on it, he added.

In addition, unlike cigarettes, no tobacco-like media campaigns are telling kids not to use marijuana, McAfee pointed out. “Nothing is being done,” he said.

The report was published Oct. 16 in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR).

In another report in the same issue of the MMWR, researchers led by S. Rene Lavinghouze found that, across the United States, more people are trying to break the smoking habit. The number of smokers who tried to quit in the past year increased significantly in 29 states and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

From 2011 to 2013, the proportion of smokers who tried to quit increased in Hawaii and Puerto Rico, but decreased in New Mexico. In 2013, the number of smokers who tried to stop ranged from 56 percent in Kentucky to 76 percent in Puerto Rico and Guam, the report showed.

The researchers urge continued use of anti-smoking programs to reach the Healthy People 2020 target of 80 percent or more of smokers who made an attempt to quit in the past year.

“These interventions include increasing the price of tobacco products, implementing comprehensive smoke-free laws, conducting educational mass media campaigns and providing insurance coverage for all effective cessation treatments, as well as access to quit-lines,” Lavinghouze and colleagues wrote.

More information

Visit the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for more on teen smoking.

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Chickpea and vegetable curry

 

intro text here

Ingredients (serves 4)

• 1 tbsp olive oil

• 1 brown onion, thinly sliced
• 1 tbsp grated fresh ginger
• 3 cloves garlic, crushed

• 3 long green chillies, finely chopped
• ½ tsp dried turmeric 

• 2 tsp ground coriander
• 2 tsp garam masala

• 2 potatoes, cut into large cubes

• 2 carrots, cut into thick slices

• 2 zucchini, cut into thick slices
• 425 g can salt-reduced chopped tomatoes
• 250 ml reduced salt vegetable stock
• 400 g can chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• 1 cup baby spinach leaves, washed

• 1 cup frozen peas



Method:
1. Heat oil in a large saucepan, add onion and ginger and cook over a medium heat for 5 minutes or until soft. Add garlic, chillies and spices and cook for 2 minutes or until fragrant.

2. Add potatoes and carrots and cook until vegetables are coated in the spices. Stir in zucchini, tomatoes and stock and simmer. Reduce heat and cook uncovered for 15 minutes or until vegetables are tender and curry has thickened slightly. Add chickpeas and stir.

3. Add peas and spinach; cook until spinach just wilts and chickpeas are soft. Serve curry with cooked brown rice.

Aloysa Hourigan is Senior Nutritionist and Program Manager for Nutrition Australia Queensland. She also works as a dietitian in private practice. 

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Dove Wants Everyone to Stop Chasing “Likes”

Photo: Getty Images

No matter who you are, it’s nearly impossible not to fall prey to the concept of hoping people “like” your social media posts — whether it’s a photo or a status update. But Dove’s new campaign #NoLikesNeeded wants to take the focus off of this pressure and encourage self love IRL.

The brand surveyed young girls in the United Kingdom and discovered six out of 10 think they are prettier onlinethan in real life, and that’s not okay. And it’s not like this phenomenon is strictly a tween and teen thing — women aged 18 – 23 want to achieve “likes” triple the amount that their younger counterparts do.

“Today’s research enables us to better understand the relationship between social media and girls’ self-esteem, and the importance of talking to girls about body confidence before they turn 18,” says Dove UK’s brand director Lucy Attley in an interview with The Telegraph.

Check out the video for more of the campaign’s staggering facts.

 

This article originally apppeared on MIMIchatter.com.

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Tribal Study Finds Short Sleep Not Just Curse of Modern Living

THURSDAY, Oct. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Fast-paced urban lifestyles may not be to blame for the lack of sleep that plagues many people today, a new study shows.

Researchers tracked the sleep habits of three traditional hunter-gatherer groups in Bolivia, Namibia and Tanzania, and found their sleep timing and duration to be similar to those of more “modern” people.

The finding “has important implications for the idea that we need to take sleeping pills because sleep has been reduced from its ‘natural level’ by the widespread use of electricity, TV, the Internet and so on,” researcher Jerome Siegel of the University of California, Los Angeles, said in a news release from the journal Current Biology.

His team published its findings in the Oct. 15 issue of the journal.

In the study, Siegel’s team followed the sleep habits of 94 people from three hunter-gatherer tribes across different parts of the world: the Hadza people of Tanzania, the San of Namibia, and the Tsimane of Bolivia.

People in all three groups slept an average of just under 6.5 hours a night, the researchers noted. They typically go to sleep about three hours after the sun goes down (even though they don’t have electric lights), wake up before sunrise, and don’t take regular naps, the study found.

All of that is similar to the sleep habits of people in modern societies, the researchers added.

“The short sleep in these populations challenges the belief that sleep has been greatly reduced in the ‘modern world,’ ” Siegel said.

His team members also believe that the hunter-gatherers’ sleep habits may have more to do with temperature than light: People tended to go to sleep as the temperature fell and they slept through the coldest part of the night.

However, the researchers also discovered that very few hunter-gatherers have chronic insomnia, a common problem in the United States. That finding could prove important.

“Mimicking aspects of the natural environment experienced by these groups might be effective in treating certain modern sleep disorders, particularly insomnia, a disorder affecting more than 20 percent of the U.S. population,” Siegel said.

More information

The U.S. National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute offers a guide to healthy sleep.

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Poorer Cancer Patients May Be Less Likely to Join Clinical Trial

THURSDAY, Oct. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — Poor cancer patients are less likely to choose to be in clinical trials of experimental treatments, a new study finds.

Researchers followed the treatments of more than 1,200 adult patients in the United States for six months after they had been diagnosed with breast, lung or colorectal cancer. Most patients were younger than 65, female and weren’t black.

People whose annual household incomes were below $50,000 were 32 percent less likely to take part in clinical trials than those with higher incomes. As incomes went down, so did participation rates. Just 11 percent of people with annual household incomes of less than $20,000 a year elected to be in a clinical trial, the study found.

“Since clinical trial treatments represent the newest available treatments, access to this vital resource should be available to individuals of all income levels,” Joseph Unger, of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, Seattle, and coauthors wrote.

The study was published online Oct. 15 in the journal JAMA Oncology.

The researchers said there are multiple reasons it’s important for people with lower incomes to be more involved in clinical trials. Income has been linked to health status, so having lower income people in a research study would make the findings more generalizable to a larger group of people, the study authors noted.

In addition, recruiting more lower-income patients might help trials get conducted more quickly, which could speed the development of new treatments, the researchers said.

More information

The U.S. National Institutes of Health has more about clinical trials.

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Tough Alcohol Policies Linked to Lower Death Rates From Liver Damage

THURSDAY, Oct. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — States with strong alcohol control policies have lower death rates connected to alcohol-related liver damage, a new study finds.

Researchers gave states scores based on their alcohol control policies, such as taxes, retail price restrictions and hours-of-sale limits. The stronger the policies, the higher the score.

A 10-point increase in the score was associated with 9 percent fewer alcoholic cirrhosis deaths among all women, the investigators found. Chronic alcohol abuse can lead to cirrhosis, or scarring of the liver.

When American Indian/Alaska Natives were not included, a 10-point increase in a state’s alcohol policy score was associated with 11 percent fewer deaths in both sexes, and 18 percent fewer alcoholic cirrhosis deaths among women alone, the findings showed.

The strongest link between alcohol policies and alcoholic cirrhosis death rates was in the northeastern United States, according to study author Dr. Scott Hadland, of Harvard Medical School and Boston Children’s Hospital, and colleagues from Boston University School of Health and Georgia State University.

However, the study did not prove a cause-and-effect relationship between stronger alcohol control policies and lower liver-related death rates.

The study was published online Oct. 15 in the journal Preventing Chronic Disease.

The results also add to recent research showing that stronger state alcohol control policies are associated with lower rates of binge drinking, the study authors noted in a journal news release.

More information

The American Liver Foundation has more about alcohol-related liver disease.

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Vaccines Rarely Cause Life-Threatening Allergic Reactions: CDC

THURSDAY, Oct. 15, 2015 (HealthDay News) — A U.S. government study has reassuring news for concerned parents — vaccines rarely trigger serious and potentially fatal allergic reactions.

Just 33 people had a serious, potentially life-threatening allergic reaction — also known as anaphylaxis — out of 25 million vaccines given, according to research from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That’s 1.3 people in every million who gets a vaccine.

“Vaccination is one of the best ways parents can protect infants, children and teens from 16 potentially harmful diseases. This is a good time to remind parents that vaccines are safe and effective — the odds of having an anaphylaxis-related reaction following the administration of a vaccine are very slim,” said study author Dr. Michael McNeil, of the CDC.

For the study, the researchers reviewed records from more than 17 million visits and more than 25 million administered vaccines. The vaccines were given from 2009 to 2011.

The researchers identified 380 cases of anaphylaxis, possible anaphylaxis, or allergy. Only 135 of these cases involved children aged 5 years old or younger, the researchers said.

Results of the study were published recently in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology.

“We identified no cases of anaphylaxis in children less than 4 years old. The median age of our case patients was 17 years old with a range from 4 to 65 years old,” McNeil noted in a journal news release.

None of the people who had anaphylaxis died, and only one had to be hospitalized, the study found.

Pre-existing allergies, asthma or past anaphylaxis were a factor in 85 percent of these cases, the study found. The researchers pointed out that these medical issues are known risk factors for anaphylaxis.

Life-threatening reactions are rare following immunization but caregivers should always be prepared to treat symptoms of anaphylaxis. The study noted that epinephrine — the first-line treatment for anaphylaxis — was given in only 45 percent of these cases.

Only 9 percent of those who had a serious allergic reaction had a documented prescription for an epinephrine auto-injector, the study found. After the reaction occurred, only 15 percent were known to have been referred to an allergist for follow-up.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides more information on vaccine safety.

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