London, United Kingdom:

The UK government is banning daytime TV adverts for sugary foods like granola and muffins in its battle against child obesity, branding such popular items as junk food.

Under measures unveiled on Tuesday, ads showing “less healthy” food and drinks will only be allowed to be aired after the 9:00 pm watershed from October next year.

According to the National Health Service, obesity is rising among British kids with one in 10 four-year-olds now considered to be obese. And one in five five-year-olds suffers from tooth decay from eating too much sugar.

Also included on the government’s list — which uses a scoring system based on each item’s sugar, fat and salt content — are pre-packaged popular sugary breakfast foods such as croissants, pancakes and waffles.

“Breakfast cereals including ready-to-eat cereals, granola, muesli, porridge oats and other oat-based cereals” are included, the government said.

Also on the banned list are products such as chickpea or lentil-based crisps, seaweed-based snacks and Bombay mix as well as energy drinks, hamburgers and chicken nuggets.

But the new restrictions will not apply to healthier options such as natural porridge oats and unsweetened yoghurt.

The government hopes the new measures could help prevent some 20,000 cases of childhood obesity a year.

“Obesity robs our kids of the best possible start in life, sets them up for a lifetime of health problems, and costs the NHS billions,” Health Secretary Wes Streeting said.

“This government is taking action now to end the targeting of junk food ads at kids, across both TV and online.”
 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

A team of US researchers has developed a novel Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based tool that can pick subtle signs of Alzheimer’s disease that emerge decades before a formal diagnosis is made. The signs are often in the form of irregular behaviors that reflect very early stages of brain dysfunction.

The team from Gladstone Institutes in California engineered mice to mimic key aspects of Alzheimer’s and used the new video-based machine learning tool to detect early signs of the brain disease.

The findings, published in the journal Cell Reports, sheds light on a new strategy for identifying neurological disease earlier than currently possible and tracking how it develops over time.

Gladstone investigator Jorge Palop said that AI can potentially revolutionise how the analysis of Alzheimer’s-linked behaviours — indicative of early abnormalities in brain function — is conducted.

The machine learning platform called VAME, (Variational Animal Motion Embedding) analysed video footage of mice exploring an open arena. It identified subtle behavioral patterns — disorganised behaviour, unusual patterns and transitioning more often between different activities — as the mice aged. These behaviours, likely associated with memory and attention deficits, were captured on camera but may not be noticed by simply looking at the mice.

The tool may help decode the origin and progression of the devastating brain disorders, Palop said, noting it can also be applied to other neurological diseases.

Further, the new study also used VAME to learn whether a potential therapeutic intervention for Alzheimer’s would prevent disorganised behavior in mice.

They found that genetically blocking a blood-clotting protein called fibrin from triggering toxic inflammation in the brain can prevent the development of abnormal behaviors in Alzheimer’s mice.

The team said the intervention also tackled the spontaneous behavioral changes in Alzheimer’s mice.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

File photo of an Urban Primary Health Centre in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. Image used for representational purposes
| Photo Credit: R. RAGU

All Primary Health Centres (PHC) in Tamil Nadu should have ‘May I Help You’ counters and must create a patient-friendly ambience that should include accessibility features for persons with disability.

Issuing guidelines for a “patient-centric approach”, the Directorate of Public Health and Preventive Medicine has told its District Health Officers (DHO) that such an approach at PHCs is crucial for providing quality care and ensuring a positive experience for patients. All DHOs should ensure that PHCs have ‘May I Help You’ boards and counters in place at the outpatient hall.

The counters should be managed by friendly, trained, and empathetic staff members or volunteers. They should be familiar with the PHC services, procedures, and staff. Clear signages with essential information on PHC services and timings, staff directories, important phone numbers, and extensions should also be in place. The signages should be in local languages and braille, if possible, the directorate said in its latest guidelines.

The PHCs should have a computer with internet connectivity for generating outpatient slips and accessing patient records (with privacy and security measures). The facilities should have printers too. To ensure patient support, the centres should have comfortable seating and waiting areas, clean drinking water and sanitation facilities, wheelchair or mobility aid, basic first aid kit, and information brochures or leaflets on various health topics.

There should be digital display screens for queue management, health awareness messages, PHC announcements, and mobile charging points or power banks. A feedback mechanism with a suggestion box or feedback form and regular patient satisfaction surveys should be taken up. To ensure that the centres are accessible, there should be ramps or elevators for easy access, audio announcements or visual displays for visually challenged patients, and sign language interpreters or braille material, if possible.

The directorate said that by incorporating these components, the counters can effectively support patients, streamline processes, and enhance the overall experience at PHCs.

Manila:

The Philippines has confirmed two more mpox virus infections of the milder clade 2 variety, its health ministry said Monday, bringing the number of active cases to three.

“We continue to see local transmission of mpox clade II here in the Philippines, in Metro Manila in particular,” Health Minister Teodoro Herbosa said in a statement.

The newly confirmed cases were a 37-year-old male in Metro Manila who had rash on his body last week and was brought to a government hospital, and a 32-year-old male from the capital who had skin lesions on his body.

The Philippines announced last week it had detected a case of the mpox virus’ milder variant in a 33-year-old male who had no travel history outside the Philippines.

The three cases this year means the Philippines has had 12 laboratory-confirmed case since July 2022.

The World Health Organization earlier this month declared mpox a global public health emergency, its highest form of alert, for the second time in two years, because of an outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo that had spread to neighbouring countries.

A new form of the virus has triggered global concern as it seems to spread easily though routine close contact.

The disease, caused by the monkeypox virus, leads to flu-like symptoms and pus-filled lesions. It is usually mild but can kill, with children, pregnant women and people with weakened immune systems, such as those with HIV, all at higher risk of complications.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Come with me to a busy outpatient clinic at a public hospital in rural Andhra Pradesh. There is a sea of waiting patients. Some are on chairs, most on the floor, waiting to be called in by the doctor. People on the floor talk, eat, and some even nap as they wait. Oppressive heat, along with the smell and feel of sweat, pervade the atmosphere.

In a small consultation room two doctors attend to a patient. In the corner, another doctor treats a patient. Outside the door stand a multitude of patients. Every now and then someone peeks in and asks, “Doctor, when will my turn come?”

Looking around, we notice there are no windows. An old fan rattles overhead, recirculating the same overheated air. While the doctors can take breaks in their air-conditioned duty room, patients have no such respite.

A similar stifling environment is replicated in many places across the country, as Mr. Joseph can testify.

“I accompanied my relative to his appointment at the B. Baruah cancer centre in Guwahati,” says Mr Joseph (name changed). “The hospital waiting room was overcrowded and extremely humid because everybody there was sweating. Soon enough, I started having a headache and muscle cramps. My temperature rose too. I had to go out to a different clinic to consult a doctor and they diagnosed me with heat exhaustion. I was admitted and given paracetamol along with saline injections. Only after some time did I feel better,” he adds.  

Failing infastructure

India’s public health infrastructure is crumbling under the sheer volume of sick people and this might have unintended consequences for people in the current heatwave India is experiencing. 

This year, India is experiencing its longest and deadliest heatwave in the past 15 years with some parts of North India hitting record-high temperatures. This heat wave disproportionately affects the poor and marginalised communities who have no access to cooling devices. While several forms of inequalities have been exposed by the current heatwave – such as occupational inequality and gender inequality, it is also important to talk about how economically-weaker sections of the community who seek healthcare from the public sector are exposed to heat-related illnesses within the premises of these clinics and hospitals. 

“My father was admitted to the general ward of a hospital because he had a fever and stomach pain sometime back,” says Muniamma, a daily wage labourer from Vellore, South India. “The doctors told me that he had a kidney infection and they were treating it with injections with which he was getting better. Suddenly his fever returned and he started speaking incoherently. Initially, the doctors did a lot of tests but then they realised that it was heat related as it was peak summer.”

Muniamma’s father, though he was admitted with a different ailment, developed a heat-related illness as he lay in the hospital bed in the overcrowded and poorly ventilated hospital ward. “The doctors tried their best,” says Muniamma who had to then sit with her father day and night spraying cold water from a spray bottle onto every bit of exposed skin. “They gave him saline injections which were cooled in a refrigerator. They asked us to bring a few table fans which we placed around him. We also kept trying to cool him by placing ice cubes in his armpits and such. But he did not get better. His kidneys failed due to the heat and he died,” she recounts sadly. 

Killer heat

Just like Muniamma, Kumari from Vellore too has lost an uncle to heat illness in a poorly-ventilated general ward. “He had some mental illness and would always be sad or crying, so we showed him to a psychiatrist and got him some medicines. However, after a suicide attempt, we rushed him to a hospital where they put a tube in his nose and gave him injections and medications. He started gaining consciousness and was getting better when he started having a fever. Considering that he was in a hospital, the doctors initially said that he might have caught an infection from one of the other patients. But all the tests came back negative. That is when we realised that it might have been the heat, as it was scorching. He was treated for heat-related illness but he did not recover,” she says, “I am truly sad that my uncle died of something that was not even his initial problem. But what can we do? We can only afford to come to a government hospital and we know how overcrowded and hot it can get,” she adds. 

While the news of heat-related deaths is making it to the headlines daily, there is reason to believe that the numbers may be underreported due to several logistical reasons. Known reasons include decreased knowledge among healthcare professionals about when to report and inadequate autopsy services to conclusively prove heat-related deaths, patients developing heat-related illness after admission to a hospital for a different illness are lesser-known reasons for the underreporting. For instance, in the past two examples, the causes of death may be mentioned as urinary tract infection and suicidal poisoning despite the actual reason being heat. 

According to Anand Zachariah, consultant physician, CMC Vellore, people who come to hospitals for certain illnesses are more vulnerable to heat-related illnesses. “Especially when someone has a fever due to any infection, it is very important for them to dissipate heat from their bodies via sweating. However, if the ambient heat in the hospital ward is high, they will not be able to do so. This puts them at a very high risk for developing heat exhaustion or heat stroke,” he says. Alongside this, older individuals, individuals with any longstanding illnesses and skin conditions which cause issues with sweating may also be at risk of developing heat-related illnesses in the hospital according to a paper co-authored by Dr. Zachariah. 

According to Aditi Dandawate, a paediatrician working at Cooper Hospital, Mumbai, such issues can be very common in newborns and children admitted for other reasons as well. “Considering the high temperatures in Mumbai in summer, we always keep our eyes peeled for dehydration in children. In the ward, we advise mothers to dress their children in the bare minimum clothing required to prevent issues. We also ensure adequate hydration in our patients as a priority, providing them with IV fluids, ORS or even coconut water to proactively ensure that heat does not worsen the child’s health,” she adds. 

Improving amenities

While these are individual measures taken at the level of the treating doctors, it is not enough to combat the systemic failings of poor infrastructure of the healthcare system and the ever-looming problem of climate change at large. Hospitals, for one, need to have a strategy in place every year as to how they would deal with such occurrences. This year some hospitals including Tirunelveli Medical College, RML Hospital Delhi, GRH Madurai etc. have started air-conditioned wards to admit and treat heat stroke patients, but these measures fall short on the prevention front. CMC Vellore has prepared a protocol for its doctors which disseminates information about how heat stroke can develop while in hospital. The document shows the signs the doctors must look out for and cautions them as to which kinds of patients are at risk for the same. 

“On top of this, it is important to ensure further changes at the level of the hospital like providing shady areas for patients to wait, keeping pots of water or water dispensers in outpatient areas, measures to cut the time patients must stand in queues etc,” says Dr. Zachariah. “Hospitals must also ensure adequate spacing between beds and ensure every patient has a fan, but in resource-limited settings, one can ask the patient bystanders to bring table fans for the patient. It is also important to store saline and some other IV fluids in the refrigerator as a precaution as administering cold saline can help bring down the body temperature of a person about to go into a heat-related illness soon,” he adds. 

The other solutions that can be considered are conducting outpatient clinics during cooler hours of the day such as early mornings and evenings, creating awareness among patients regarding the development of heat-related illnesses in hospitals and advising patients who come for just general check ups or regular check ups for their diabetes or hypertension to not to do so in the summer months and to come only if they have any troubling symptoms. 

In the current scenario of climate change as we all adapt to “the new normal” it is time that healthcare providers, clinics and hospitals also adapt to ensure that people seeking treatment from them are not subjected to heat-related ailments due to poor planning and infrastructural concerns. 

(Assistance for overcoming suicidal thoughts is available on the State’s health helpline 104, Tele-MANAS 14416 and Sneha’s suicide prevention helpline 044-24640050. Helplines across the country can be accessed here.)

(Dr. Christianez Ratna Kiruba is an internal medicine doctor with a passion for patient rights advocacy. christianezdennis@gmail.com)

Sperm donated in the UK is being exported to other countries and can be used to create large numbers of children across the world, violating a strict 10-family limit that applies in the UK, experts warned. According to The Guardian, while a single donor can be used to create no more than 10 families in UK fertility clinics, there are no restrictions on sperm or eggs from the country being sent abroad. This legal loophole is being exploited in what appears to be an industrial-level practice. It also raises the prospect of some donor-conceived children navigating relationships with dozens of biological half-siblings across Europe and beyond. 

Amidst this, experts are calling on the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HFEA) to tighten restrictions. “If you believe that it’s necessary to enforce the 10-family limit in the modern world then logically that should apply wherever the sperm are from,” said Prof Jackson Kirkman-Brown, chair of the Association for Reproductive and Clinical Scientists (ARCS), per The Guardian. “There is data showing that some of the children who find the really big families struggle with that,” he added. 

Separately, speaking to the outlet, Prof Lucy Frith, of the University of Manchester, who is researching donor-conceived experiences, said that making contact with biological half-siblings is often viewed positively. However, she added that “when numbers of siblings began to grow [it] felt unmanageable to have contact and relationships with a growing and indeterminate number of people.” 

“There are no hard and fast figures of when the number becomes ‘too much’ and this depends on individuals, but generally over 10 was felt to be a large group,” she said. 

“Once you’ve frozen sperm it doesn’t get any older,” said Mr Kirkman-Brown. This means that a donor sperm could continue to be used for years or decades. “You can end up with donor siblings older than your parents, which is not somewhere we’ve been yet,” he added.

Donations are “presented to donors as a beautiful gift to help someone create a family, not as, ‘We’re going to maximise the number of births from your gametes and make as much money as we can from that,'” said Prof Nicky Hudson, a medical sociologist at De Montford University. 

The rule for enforcing the 10-family limit across licensed clinics is controlled by HEFA. According to the regulatory body, 10 is the number people feel comfortable with in terms of the number of potential donor-conceived children, half-siblings and families that might be created. 

“As the HFEA has no remit over donation outside of HFEA licensed clinics, there would be no monitoring of how many times a donor is used in these circumstances,” said Rachel Cutting, director of compliance and information at the HFEA.

Also Read | Humans Experience Fastest Aging At These Two Ages, Reveals Study

Experts are now asking HEFA to crack down. “The HFEA is limited by its statutory duties, but it could stipulate that it will only import gametes that meet the UK limit (10 families), outside the UK,” said Lucy Frith. 

“The HFEA’s position that this is outside its remit is not good enough,” said Sarah Norcross, director of the fertility charity Progress Educational Trust. “I’m not against there being more than 10 families if some are outside the UK, but 75, which some of these banks have alighted on, is a heck of a lot of relatives. Even if they say we can’t control the number of families abroad, they could insist that the number is made available to the recipient,” she added. 

Notably, according to The Guardian, the United Kingdom was an importer of sperm till five years ago, mainly from the US and Denmark. But between 2019 and 2021, the UK exported 7,542 straws of sperm. Additionally, the world’s largest sperm and egg bank Cryos opened a unit in Manchester this April.

“The European Sperm Bank, which accounted for 90% of exports, applies a worldwide limit of 75 families a donor and estimates that its donors help on average 25 families,” the report said. 

“The idea of a dad to loads of children already exists in our cultural imagination. We don’t have that for women,” noted Prof Nicky Hudson, adding that it’s not an idea encouraged by women. One of them told her it “felt like human trafficking”. 

Sydney:

Australian children with potentially deadly peanut allergies will be offered life-saving treatment in a nationwide programme touted as a world first.

Eligible babies will receive daily doses of peanut powder for two years to build up their tolerance, said officials announcing the initiative on Wednesday.

Over time, the infants will be given increasing doses in the hope of reducing their sensitivity to peanuts, under the supervision of doctors at 10 paediatric hospitals around the country.

It is the first national peanut allergy treatment programme offered in hospitals outside of a clinical trial setting, said Kirsten Perrett, head of oral immunotherapy at the National Allergy Centre of Excellence.

At the end of the two years, a food allergy test will determine if the treatment has led to a remission.

“Ultimately we want to change the trajectory of allergic disease in Australia so that more children can go to school without the risk of a life-threatening peanut reaction,” Perrett said.

Previously, families have been told to ensure their children strictly avoid foods with peanuts.

Australian children have some of the highest rates of food allergies in the world.

Peanut allergies affect three percent of Australian children by the time they are 12 months old, government data shows.

Of those, only 20 percent will outgrow their allergy by the time they are teenagers.

Nine-month-old Hunter Chatwin, who is among those in the free treatment programme, started developing hives after eating peanut butter.

“We are taking part in the programme to try and improve his chance of being able to safely eat peanut in the future,” Hunter’s mother Kirsten said.

“Many families are desperate to protect their children from allergic reactions and anaphylaxis,” she said.

“To have this programme available and free at public hospitals is a game-changer.”

If successful, the programme will be rolled out more broadly, including in regional and remote areas.

Deaths from peanut allergies are rare in Australia, but almost 20 percent of the population has an allergic disease, data from Australia’s leading allergy institute found.

This figure is estimated to grow by 70 percent by 2050, impacting 7.7 million Australians.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

In the last few decades, scientists have finally learned to harness the immune system to successfully treat cancer. Image for Representation.
| Photo Credit: Freepik

In the last few decades, scientists have finally learned to harness the immune system to successfully treat cancer. Although doctors often use immunotherapy drugs, another type of treatment uses patient’s cells to treat their own cancers.

Car-T therapy, short for “chimeric antigen receptor T-cell”, is a cutting-edge treatment that reprogrammes a patient’s immune cells to fight their cancer. This innovative approach involves taking T-cells, a type of white blood cell that plays a crucial role in the immune system, from a patient and modifying them in a laboratory to better recognise and attack cancer cells.

These enhanced T-cells are then multiplied and infused back into the patient, where they seek out and destroy cancer cells. Lots of data shows that in difficult-to-treat lymphomas, a type of cancer, patients can do so well.

In November 2023, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced an investigation into this celebrated cancer treatment. They were looking into whether Car-T therapy might be causing new cancers in some patients who had undergone the treatment. This was a significant concern given the therapy’s reputation as a revolutionary cancer-fighting strategy.

Initially, the FDA mentioned that it had observed 20 cases where patients developed new immune-cell cancers, such as lymphomas or leukaemias, which are types of blood cell cancer, after receiving Car-T therapy. This prompted questions about who these patients were, how many such cases existed and what other treatments they might have received before Car-T therapy.

By March 2024, the FDA had documented 33 such cases among around 30,000 treated patients. Consequently, all Car-T therapies now carry a boxed warning about the potential risk of developing secondary cancers. The European Medicines Agency also started its own investigation into the matter.

Despite these concerns, it is still unclear whether the new cancers are directly caused by the Car-T cells or whether other factors are involved. It is also important to note that these cancers are very rare – as data published this month shows.

Many cancer treatments come with a risk of secondary malignancies and, of course, the cancer returning. And patients receiving Car-T therapy often have had several other treatments that could also contribute to the risk. Researchers are now working to determine if Car-T therapy is a contributing factor or the primary cause of these new cancers.

Car-T therapy was initially used for patients with no other treatment options, but it has since been approved as a second-line treatment for certain types of blood cancers, like lymphoma and multiple myeloma. Scientists are also exploring its potential for treating solid tumours including hard to treat brain cancers, autoimmune diseases, ageing, HIV and other conditions.

The process of creating Car-T cells involves using viruses to insert new genetic material into T-cells. These viruses, called retroviruses, are engineered to carry the gene for a chimeric antigen receptor (Car) into the T-cells.

Massive benefits

While these retroviruses are modified to be safe, there is always a risk that the new genetic material could disrupt other important genes and potentially lead to cancer – a phenomenon known as “insertional mutagenesis”. This means new genetic material is added to a cell.

This risk isn’t new. About 20 years ago, gene therapy treatments for severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome using similar retroviruses led to leukaemia in some patients. As a result, scientists have worked to improve the safety of these viral vectors. The FDA now requires thorough testing to ensure that the viruses used in Car-T therapy cannot replicate and cause harm.

Despite these findings, the most important thing to emphasise is that secondary cancers remain rare and these cell therapies can have massive benefits in very sick people.

The new review of patients treated with Car-T therapies at various centres found that only a small percentage developed secondary cancers, and most were not the type directly linked to the Car-T treatment. This suggests that while there is a risk, it is relatively low compared to the immediate threat posed by the patient’s existing cancer.

Medical professionals now inform patients about the potential but rare risk of secondary cancers when discussing Car-T therapy. For most patients, especially those with advanced cancers, the potential benefits of Car-T therapy far outweigh these risks.

As mentioned, Car-T therapy is also being investigated for other applications beyond cancer. For instance, it has shown promise in treating autoimmune diseases such as lupus and even in preventing organ transplant rejection. The potential uses for Car-T cells are continually expanding, offering hope for treating a wide range of diseases.

Ultimately, while the risk of secondary cancers from Car-T therapy is a serious consideration, the benefits for many patients are significant and far outweigh this small risk. Research will continue to refine these treatments and improve their safety.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Washington, United States:

US officials on Thursday reported the country’s third human case of bird flu linked to the current outbreak of the virus in dairy cattle.

The Michigan farm worker is the second person sickened by the disease in the Midwestern state, following a first case in Texas in April.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said in a statement all three cases were spread from cows to humans, as opposed to human-to-human, which would be more concerning.

But it added it was the first case “to report more typical symptoms of acute respiratory illness associated with influenza virus infection,” while the previous cases resulted in mild symptoms including conjunctivitis.

The person’s symptoms included cough without fever, eye discomfort and watery eye discharge. They were treated with the antiviral medicine oseltamivir and isolated at home, with their symptoms resolving.

The worker was not wearing personal protective equipment, which health authorities have recommended for those in close contact with dairy herds, said Michigan’s health department.

Over the past few years, a highly pathogenic avian influenza virus called HPAI H5N1 has spread to infect more than 50 animal species, including, from March, dairy cattle in the United States.

Unlike in Europe, American farmers are allowed to feed cattle ground-up chicken waste, which some scientists say may be a risk factor for bird flu — though the feed industry has challenged this claim and US authorities believe wild birds are responsible for infecting cows.

“The risk to members of the general public who do not have exposure to infected animals remains low,” said the CDC.

It added that finding a new case was “not surprising” because Michigan was proactively testing for cases among farmworkers.

In addition to using PPE, people should avoid close exposure to sick or dead animals including wild birds, domesticated birds and other domesticated animals, according to the CDC.

They should also avoid touching animal excrement or bedding, or consuming unpasteurized milk, the agency added.

Recent testing has confirmed mice are sickened by exposure to raw milk contaminated with bird flu, but pasteurization destroys the virus.

Most recently, the disease has been found in farm-raised alpacas in Idaho.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)