health $wellness blog

New Delhi: Only 16 per cent of the people aged 50 and above have taken any adult vaccine even though 71 per cent of those in the age group are aware of it, with a majority of doctors citing the absence of formal guidelines as a major cause for the lack of adoption of adult vaccination, according to a survey. The survey was conducted recently by the Association of Physicians in India (API) and Ipsos, a global market research and polling firm, in 16 cities among those aged 50 years and older, their caregivers and doctors.  Also Read:Celebrating success of Indian doctors: GAPIO holds conference in collaboration with BAPIO in UK It yielded compelling insights into why there is a low adoption of adult immunisation in India, they said. The survey was conducted among 1,950 adults above 50 years of age, 409 caregivers and 345 doctors from February to March 2023. The qualitative part of the survey was conducted with 30 adults above the age of 50 years and their caregivers and 30 doct...

Hours of inactivity during childhood could be setting the stage for heart attacks and strokes later in life, according to research presented at ESC Congress 2023.1 The study found that sedentary time accumulated from childhood to young adulthood was associated with heart damage – even in those with normal weight and blood pressure. The researchers analyzed the association between sedentary time between 11 and 24 years of age and heart measurements between 17 and 24 years of age after adjusting for factors that could influence the relationship including age, sex, blood pressure, body fat, smoking, physical activity and socioeconomic status. The study included 766 children, of whom 55% were girls and 45% were boys. At 11 years of age, children were sedentary for an average of 362 minutes a day, rising to 474 minutes a day in adolescence , and 531 minutes a day in young adulthood. This means that sedentary time increased by an average of 169 minutes a day between childhood and young ad...

London:   AstraZeneca is facing two London lawsuits, including one from the husband of a woman who died after receiving the Anglo-Swedish drugmaker's COVID-19 vaccine , in the first of potentially dozens of cases brought in England. Britain was the first country to roll out the at-cost AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine in early 2021, although it later restricted the use of it among under 40s due to the small risk of blood clots . Anish Tailor, whose wife Alpa died in March 2021 after receiving her first dose of the vaccine, filed a product liability claim against AstraZeneca at London's High Court on Aug. 4, according to court records. His lawyer Peter Todd, from the law firm Scott-Moncrieff & Associates, told Reuters that he has nearly 50 other clients who will formally sue AstraZeneca in the coming months. AstraZeneca declined to comment on active legal cases. A spokesperson said in a statement: " Patient safety is our highest priority and regulatory authorities...

Chennai: In a first, Indian doctors from a private hospital in Chennai were able to perform India's first successful cross-blood heart transplant surgery on a one-and-a-half-year-old baby girl, an official said.    "MGM Healthcare has successfully completed an ABO-incompatible paediatric heart transplant, crossing the blood group barrier. The one-and-a-half-year-old baby had multiple episodes of cardiac arrest before the transplant surgery. Dr KR Balakrishnan, Dr Suresh Rao KG, and their team handled the child cautiously, resuscitated the patient every time she had a cardiac arrest, and successfully performed an ABO incompatible paediatric Heart Transplant," hospital authorities said. Also Read:MGM Healthcare gets new Hypertension Centre According to the hospital authorities, a one-and-a-half-year-old child who was suffering from terminal heart failure due to dilated cardiomyopathy (DCM) was airlifted from Bulgaria to Chennai for possible further treatment. On the w...

After adding follow-up years, increased sample sizes and examining multiple surgical procedures, new research shows bariatric surgery is associated with lower all-cancer and obesity-related cancer incidence among females. The research also found that cancer mortality was significantly lower among female surgical patients compared to non-surgical subjects. Although population studies have established a positive association between body mass index and cancer incidence, less clear is whether voluntary reduction in body weight leads to reduced cancer risk because significant and sustained weight loss in large populations is difficult to achieve. In the current study, researchers compared cancer incidence and mortality stratified by obesity- and non-obesity-related cancers, sex, cancer stage and procedure. Retrospectively (1982-2019), nearly 22,000 bariatric surgery patients were compared with non-surgical subjects with severe obesity. Results showed that the bariatric surgery group had...

A new study projects nearly 1 billion people will be living with osteoarthritis, the most common form of arthritis, by 2050. Currently, 15% of individuals aged 30 and older experience osteoarthritis. The research, published in The Lancet Rheumatology, analyzed 30 years of osteoarthritis data covering more than 200 countries and was led by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). The study found that cases increased rapidly over the past three decades because of three main factors: aging, population growth, and obesity. The most common areas for osteoarthritis are knees and hips. By 2050, osteoarthritis is projected to increase by the following percentages based on problem areas of the human body. ♦ Knee +74.9% ♦ Hand +48.6% ♦ Hip +78.6% ♦ Other (e.g., elbow, shoulder) +95.1% More women than men are expected to continue grappling with this condition. In 2020, 61% of osteoarthritis cases were in women versus 39% in men. This study shows that obesity or high body m...

Researchers have found in a new study that Vitamin D supplementation was an effective strategy for improving survival in GI and colorectal cancers.The study has been published in JAMA Network Open. Dr Michael F. Holick, PhD, MD, professor of medicine, pharmacology, physiology & biophysics and molecular medicine at Boston University Chobanian & Avedisian School of Medicine, explores the controversy as to whether improving vitamin D status has any benefit for reducing risk of developing cancer as well as improving relapse-free and mortality outcomes. For more than 100 years, it has been believed that sunlight and vitamin D deficiency were associated with the risk for many deadly cancers including colorectal, prostate and breast. But some scientists remained skeptical that this nutrient provides any benefit for reducing cancer risk and morbidity and mortality and several randomized controlled trials that have supported this doubt. He believes the results of the Kanno et al. st...