How to converts body heat into power and Citrus Fruits Reduces Risk of Stroke

How Citrus Fruits May Help Women Reduce Risk of Stroke

What is stroke-

A stroke happens when blood flow to a part of the brain stops. A stroke is sometimes called a "brain attack." Symptoms: The symptoms of stroke depend on what part of the brain is damaged

Eating citrus fruits, especially oranges and grapefruit, because of the flavonone they contain, may lower women's risk of developing clot-associated or ischemic stroke, according to a new study led by Norwich Medical School of the University of East Anglia in the UK that was published online in Stroke: Journal of the American Heart Association on Thursday. The researchers wanted to examine more closely how consumption of foods containing different classes of flavonoids affected the risk of stroke.

Flavonoids are a group of compounds found in fruits, vegetables, dark chocolate and red wine.

Study lead author and professor of nutrition at Norwich Medical School, Dr Aedín Cassidy, told the press:"Studies have shown higher fruit, vegetable and specifically vitamin C intake is associated with reduced stroke risk."A stroke is where part of the brain shuts down because of loss of blood supply, caused either by a blockage or embolism that stops the blood flow (ischemia), or due to leakage caused by a hemorrhage. Cassidy said flavonoids are thought to provide some protection against stroke by improving blood vessel function and reducing inflammation, among other things.

For their study, Cassidy and colleagues examined data from the Nurse's Health Study. Based in the US, this is one of the largest and longest running investigations of factors that influence women's health. It started in 1976 and expanded in 1989. The researchers looked at 14 years of follow-up data completed by 69,622 female participants who every four years had reported their dietary intake, including details of the fruits and vegetables they consumed.

They looked for links between the six major subclasses of flavonoids commonly present in the American diet and risk of ischemic, hemorrhagic and total stroke. The six major subclasses they examined were: flavonones, anthocyanins, flavon-3-ols, flavonoid polymers, flavonols and flavones. Since we already know that each subclass has a different biological effect, the researchers did not expect to find any strong beneficial links between total flavonoid consumption and stroke risk. But they did find a strong link between high consumption of flavonones in citrus fruits and reduced stroke risk: women who consumed the most showed a 19% lower risk of ischemic stroke compared to women who ate the least amounts of flavonones in citrus fruits.

In this study, oranges and orange juice (82%) and grapefruit and grapefruit juice (14%) had the highest amounts of flavonones. But the researchers said if you are looking to increase your intake, then go for the fruit rather than the juice, because the latter tends to be accompanied by high amounts of sugar. While previous studies have shown links between various foods and protection against both kinds of stroke, and this study further informs the field, the researchers said we still need to get a better understanding about why the link occurs, and that has to come from further research.

(Source-: Journal of the American Heart Association)

Nanotech converts body heat into power

Nice research….

Let us hope for best

Power felt is a new thermoelectric material that converts temperature differences into electricity.

Never get stranded with a dead cell phone again. A promising new technology called Power Felt, a thermoelectric device that converts body heat into an electrical current, soon could create enough juice to make another call simply by touching it. Developed by researchers in the Center for

Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials at Wake Forest University, Power Felt is comprised of tiny carbon nanotubes locked up in flexible plastic fibers and made to feel like fabric. The technology uses temperature differences – room temperature versus body temperature, for instance – to create a charge. Their research appears in the current issue of Nano Letters, a leading journal in nanotechnology.

“We waste a lot of energy in the form of heat. For example, recapturing a car’s energy waste could help improve fuel mileage and power the radio, air conditioning or navigation system,” says researcher and Wake Forest graduate student Corey Hewitt. “Generally thermoelectrics are an underdeveloped technology for harvesting energy, yet there is so much opportunity.”

Potential uses for Power Felt include lining automobile seats to boost battery power and service electrical needs, insulating pipes or collecting heat under roof tiles to lower gas or electric bills, lining clothing or sports equipment to monitor performance, or wrapping IV or wound sites to better track patients’ medical needs.“Imagine it in an emergency kit, wrapped around a flashlight, powering a weather radio, charging a prepaid cell phone,” said David Carroll, director of the Center for Nanotechnology and Molecular Materials. “Power Felt could provide relief during power outages or accidents.”Cost has prevented thermoelectrics from being used more widely in consumer products. Standard thermoelectric devices use a much more efficient compound called bismuth telluride to turn heat into power in products including mobile refrigerators and CPU coolers, but researchers say it can cost $1,000 per kilogram. Like silicon, they liken Power Felt’s affordability to demand in volume and think someday it could cost only $1 to add to a cell phone cover.Currently, 72 stacked layers in the fabric yield about 140 nanowatts of power. The team is evaluating several ways to add more nanotube layers and make them even thinner to boost the power output.Although there’s more work to do before Power Felt is ready for market, Hewitt says, “I imagine being able to make a jacket with a completely thermoelectric inside liner that gathers warmth from body heat, while the exterior remains cold from the outside temperature. If the Power Felt is efficient enough, you could potentially power an iPod, which would be great for distance runners. It’s definitely within reach.”

Wake Forest is in talks with investors to produce Power Felt commercially.

(Source- Nano Letters)

Good news for Preventing Absence Seizures in Children’s

Absence seizure — also known as petit mal — involves a brief, sudden lapse of consciousness. Absence seizures are more common in children than adults.

A team led by a University of British Columbia professor has developed a new class of drugs that completely suppress absence seizures - a brief, sudden loss of consciousness - in rats, and which are now being tested in humans. Absence seizures, also known as "petit mal seizures," are a symptom of epilepsy, most commonly experienced by children. During such episodes, the person looks awake but dazed. The seizures, arising from a flurry of high-frequency signals put out by the neurons of the thalamus, can be dangerous if they occur while a person is swimming or driving, and can also interrupt learning. Available medications don't completely control such seizures in many patients. They also cause severe side effects, including sleepiness, blurred vision and diminished motor control.

A Canadian-Australian team, led by neuroscientist Terrance P. Snutch, a Canada Research Chair in the Michael Smith Laboratories at UBC, developed new drugs with a different target - the flow of calcium into brain cells. Their findings were published in Science Translational Medicine.

The new drugs, known as Z941 and Z944, block the flow of calcium ions into those neurons. When given to rats with absence epilepsy, they suppressed seizures by 85 to 90 per cent. The team, which included collaborators at Zalicus Pharmaceuticals Ltd. of Vancouver and the University of

Melbourne, was surprised to find that when seizures did occur, they were also of shorter duration; existing medications don't have any effect on the length of seizures. The first phase of human clinical trials of Z944 began in December, with results expected later this year. "Z941 and Z944 were designed to target a specific type of nerve cell calcium channel associated with epilepsy, as well as other hyper-excitability disorders such as chronic pain," says Snutch, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and zoology. "The dramatic effect of the drugs in rats with absence epilepsy, together with the drugs' ability to be administered orally and easily absorbed, and its good safety profile in animals, provide us with cautious optimism for the current clinical trial."

(Source- Science Translational Medicine)

How Plastic Surgery Does Make People Look Younger Like Hollywood Actors(Too Costly)

Plastic surgery seems to make people look about 8.9 years younger than their actual age, researchers from the University of Toronto and North Shore University Health System reported in Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery.

Jeremy P. Warner, M.D., and team set out to determine how much younger esthetic facial surgical procedures made people look, in order to measure surgical success. They gathered data on 60 patients who had all undergone facial plastic surgeries. They were aged between 45 and 72 years. The patients were divided into three groups:

• Face and neck lift group

• Face and neck lift and eyelid work (blepharoplasty) group

• Eyelid work, and face, neck and forehead lifts

 

Forty medical students were asked to guess the age of people shown to them in photographs. They looked at pictures of patients before and after surgery.

The researchers found that:

Photographs taken before surgery - students guessed they were 1.7 years younger than they actually were (average)

Photographs taken after surgery - overall (all three groups), students guessed they were 8.9 years younger than they actually were

Face and neck lift group - 5.7 year change in perceived age

Face and neck lift and eyelid work - 7.5 years change in perceived age

Eyelid work, and face, neck and forehead lifts - 8.5 year change in perceived age

The medical students were fairly similar in how they perceived people's ages.

The authors explained that their study differs from previous ones in that it quantified how much younger the medical students thought the people in the photographs were after undergoing surgery. They added that the more facial surgeries people do, the younger their perceived age becomes.

The authors wrote:” This effect is more substantial when the number of surgical procedures is increased, an effect unrelated to the preoperative age of a patient and unaffected by other variables that we investigated. The ability to perceive age correctly is accurate and consistent."

(Source- Archives of Facial Plastic Surgery)

Here is the cost of Plastic Surgery in US

Actual Plastic & Cosmetic Surgery Prices

The following table gives an estimate of the total average cost including all the costs outlined earlier for some of the most popular cosmetic surgery procedures.  

The next table gives you the 2010 US national average cost for only the surgeon fees.

The last table below gives you the 2010 cost by region.

Procedures Average Total Cost

Breast Augmentation $6,000

Breast Lift $5,200

Breast Reduction $5,200

Eyelid Surgery $4,000

Facelift $8,500

Liposuction (one area) $4,000

Male Breast Reduction $5,200

Rhinoplasty $5,000

Tummy Tuck $6,400

National Average Plastic Surgery Cost per Procedure 2010

Surgeon/physician fees only. This does not include costs for surgical facility, anesthesia, medical tests, prescriptions, surgical garments or other miscellaneous fees related to surgery given earlier in this article. Data taken from ASAPS (American Society of Aesthetic Plastic Surgery) and ASPS (American Society of Plastic Surgeons)

Procedures Surgeon Fee(ASAPS) Surgeon Fee(ASPS)

Autologous Fat (injectable) $1,763 $1,700

Botox $398 $375

Breast Implant Removal no data $2,288

Breast Augmentation (Implants) $3,600* $3,351

Breast Lift $4,401 $4,207

Breast Reduction in Men $3,377 $3,013

Buttock Augmentation (Implants) $4,459 $4,500

Buttock Lift $4,950 $4,379

Cheek Implants $2,732 $2,739

Chemical Peel $679 $706

Chin Augmentation $2,239 $2,000

Collagen, Bovine Injections $473 $475

Dermabrasion no data $1,200

Ear Surgery (Otoplasty) $3,048 $3,054

Eyelid surgery (blepharoplasty) $2,912 $2,828

Facelift $6,629 $6,231

Forehead Lift $3,173 $3,161

Hair Transplantation no data $4,676

Hyaluronic Acid (Juvederm) $558 $547

IPL Laser Treatment $384 $470

Laser Hair Removal $314 $383

Laser Skin resurfacing (ablative) $2,232 $2,040

Laser Skin resurfacing (non-ablative) $952 $1,156

Laser Treatment of Leg Veins $351 $404

Lip Augmentation (surgical) $2,022 $1,683

Liposuction $2,914 $2,884

Lower Body Lift $7,904 $7,247

Microdermabrasion $123 $146

Polylactic Acid (Sculptra) $897 $940

Polymethyl Methacrylate (Artefill) no data $1,099

Rhinoplasty $4,314 $4,306

Sclerotherapy $344 $354

Thigh Lift $4,882 $4,507

Tummy Tuck (abdominoplasty) $5,332 $5,130

Upper Arm Lift $4,070 $3,729

Vaginal Rejuvenation no data no data

The cost of plastic surgery is dependent on a few factors, cost for the actual procedure, amount of work involved, medications, anesthesia, medical tests, surgical garments or other miscellaneous fees related to the surgery.