How To Prevent and Treat Fatty Liver

I have a Fatty Liver- Now what?

Many of my clients have digestive issues and think it is to do with a food they are eating. Sometimes they opt for allergy testing, others get blood work or an ultrasound done to see if there are any serious problems.

More and more clients are been diagnosed with a fatty liver and ask me now what do I do?

What is a fatty liver?

A fatty liver is the result of excess fat in the liver. This fat builds up when a person’s diet exceeds the amount of fat their body can handle. Having a fatty liver can lead to fatty liver disease, which then leads to chronic illnesses. Many who are overweight, have belly fat, are insulin resistant, pre- diabetic and who crave sugars and starches are likely have a fatty liver. Yet many who are ultimately healthy and not overweight are finding they to, have a fatty liver.

Read more: How To Prevent and Treat Fatty Liver

Source: justnaturallyhealthy

Antibiotics In Early Life Could Raise Children's Food Allergy Risk

Infection in the first year of life can be deadly for an infant, and antibiotic treatment is often the first port of call. But such treatment may have a downside; new research from the University of South Carolina finds early antibiotic exposure could raise a child's risk of food allergies.

While the study did not investigate the reasons behind this association, the researchers say it is likely down to changes in gut microbiota as a result of antibiotic treatment.

Lead author Dr. Bryan Love, of the Department of Clinical Pharmacy and Outcomes Sciences at the South Carolina College of Pharmacy, and colleagues report their results in the journal Allergy, Asthma & Clinical Immunology.

Previous research has suggested that changes to the composition of gut bacteria in early life can have negative implications for health, and antibiotics are known to do just that.

Read more: Antibiotics In Early Life Could Raise Children's Food Allergy Risk

Early antibiotic exposure could raise children's risk of food allergies.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Point-Of-Care Hemoglobin Testing: Methods And Relevance To Combat Anemia

Anemia is a condition that causes a high degree of personal disability but, historically, has lacked adequate resourcing in many public health systems. This situation is even less understandable when you consider that the main diagnostic, hemoglobin testing, is one of the most commonly used point-of-care (POC) tests, and one of the easiest to perform.

POC hemoglobin testing is often needed in settings where the use of a benchtop laboratory hematology analyzer is not practical. It is ideal for use in settings where resources are poor, or there is a need for mobility and simplicity in field use, or where turnaround time (TAT) for the test result needs to be short, as in acute clinical situations.

Read more: Point-Of-Care Hemoglobin Testing: Methods And Relevance To Combat Anemia

Source: MedicalLaboratoryObserver

Language Learning Boosts Brain Plasticity And Ability To Code New Information

By studying brain electrical activity of volunteers, researchers found that language acquisition enhances brain plasticity and capacity for learning. In particular, they note that early language learning plays a significant role in the rapid formation of memory circuits for coding new information.

In a paper published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers from the Higher School of Economics (HSE), in Moscow, Russia, and the University of Helsinki, in Finland, describe how they used EEG (electroencephalography) to probe the brain mechanisms involved in language learning in human volunteers.

Previous research has established that understanding the brain mechanisms involved in acquiring language helps enormously in the diagnosis and treatment of people with impaired speech following accidents, strokes, and other related conditions.

Read more: Language Learning Boosts Brain Plasticity And Ability To Code New Information

The researchers found that the more languages a volunteer had mastered, the faster the brain circuits
coding new information reacted.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Current Approaches For The Detection Of Acute Kidney Injury

Acute kidney injury is a recognized complication in hospitalized patients and is associated with a high morbidity and high mortality. This brief article aims to summarize the need for early detection of acute kidney injury and the current approach within NHS England to identify such patients.

Background

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is a recognized complication in hospitalized patients. A report in 2009 from National Confidential Enquiry into Patient Outcome and Death (NCEPOD) suggested that AKI was frequently undetected in hospital patients thus contributing to patient morbidity and mortality.

Clinical guidelines for recognition and treatment for acute kidney injury were published by NICE (the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence) in 2013 and reported an associated mortality with AKI of more than 25–30%. This guideline also recognized the prevalence of AKI in the primary care population in patients with or without acute illness.

NICE also recognized the impact of AKI on healthcare resources, with costs (excluding those in the community) of £434–620 million per year, more than that associated with breast, lung and skin cancer combined.

Read more: Current Approaches For The Detection Of Acute Kidney Injury

Table 1. Common causes of acute kidney injury.

Source: cli-online

Breast-Feeding May Reduce Asthma Symptoms For At-Risk Infants

A new study provides further evidence of the health benefits of breast-feeding, after finding infants with a genetic susceptibility for asthma development are less likely to experience symptoms of the condition if they are breast-fed.

Asthma is estimated to affect around 8.6 percent of children and adolescents in the United States, making it one of the most common chronic childhood diseases.

Asthma symptoms are the same for children as for adults; these include wheezing, coughing, breathing problems, and chest tightness. However, because children have smaller airways, symptoms may be more severe.

As a result, asthma is the third leading cause of hospital stays and a leading cause of missed school days for children in the U.S.

While the precise causes of asthma remain unclear, studies have suggested the respiratory condition may arise as a result of environmental and genetic factors.

Read more: Breast-Feeding May Reduce Asthma Symptoms For At-Risk Infants

Breast-feeding may reduce respiratory symptoms for children genetically susceptible to asthma
development.

Source: medicalnewstoday

New Understanding Of Pulmonary Hypertension Leads To Promising Drug Targets

A groundbreaking new study led by researchers from the University of Pittsburgh and UPMC has identified a new group of compounds that could have robust effects in treating pulmonary hypertension (PH), an enigmatic but sometimes fatal disease of the blood vessels of the lungs that currently has no cure. The findings, which were published today in the Journal of Clinical Investigation, highlight the use of these drugs to alter vessel stiffness and its downstream control of metabolism, a link previously unknown for people suffering from the progressive disease.

“If we aim to cure this disease, the next set of medications and treatments should be those that target the origin at the molecular level,” said Stephen Y. Chan, M.D., Ph.D., director of the UPMC Center for Pulmonary Vascular Biology and Medicine at the Vascular Medicine Institute at Pitt, and senior author of the study. “As a community, we are struggling right now to understand those origins of PH, and this study aimed to address that untapped need.”

Read more: New Understanding Of Pulmonary Hypertension Leads To Promising Drug Targets

Source: bioengineer

Crohn's disease: Potential treatment to prevent fibrosis uncovered

Scientists from the University of British Columbia in Canada have found a mutation that switches off a hormone receptor, which prevents mice from developing fibrosis. This discovery could lead to potential treatments to prevent fibrosis in people with Crohn's disease.

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) - which includes Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis - affects around 1.6 million people in the United States. Most people are diagnosed with Crohn's disease before age 35, and while these life-long conditions can be treated, there is currently no cure.

Crohn's disease is a long-term condition that causes inflammation to the lining of the digestive system. While the disease can affect any part of the gastrointestinal tract, the most commonly affected areas are the end of the small intestine (the ileum) or the large intestine (colon).

Read more: Crohn's disease: Potential treatment to prevent fibrosis uncovered

Scientists can potentially block complications of fibrosis in Crohn's disease by dampening particular
inflammatory cell types.

Source: medicalnewstoday

Watch: Discovery offers hope for Crohn's disease sufferers

Electrical Immunosensor Detects Acute Myocardial Infarction

Heart disease and especially acute myocardial infarction (AMI) are the leading causes of death for both men and women and therefore, a fast and reliable diagnosis of heart attack or cardiac episode are urgently needed.

The most commonly used biomarkers are creatine kinase-MB, myoglobin, cardiac troponin T, and cardiac troponin I (cTnI), which is a subunit of the troponin complex found in cardiac muscle and is a highly specific and sensitive biomarker for the clinical diagnosis of AMI.

Read more: Electrical Immunosensor Detects Acute Myocardial Infarction

The core material used for the new immunosensor that detects proteins in the blood stream following

a heart attack, providing results in just one minute (Photo courtesy of Ulsan National Institute of

Science and Technology).

Source: labmedica

Liver Cancer Risk Influenced By Blood Selenium Levels

The risk of developing liver cancer may be significantly higher for people who have low levels of the nutrient selenium in their blood, suggests a new study published in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.

Selenium is a trace mineral present in soil, animal products, and plant-based foods, including seafood, Brazil nuts, organ meats, milk, and eggs.

The selenium content of food varies greatly, as it depends on how much of the element is in the plants animals consume, as well as how much is in the soil in which plants grow.

According to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), selenium is essential for human health, with beneficial roles for reproduction, the immune system, and DNA synthesis.

Studies have also shown that selenium has antioxidant properties, meaning it can protect against oxidative stress - the process by which uncharged molecules called free radicals damage cells.

Read more: Liver Cancer Risk Influenced By Blood Selenium Levels

Low blood selenium levels may put people at greater risk of liver cancer.

Source: medicalnewstoday