The findings of a latest UK study could potentially help in managing patients and also highlight who are more at risk against specific side effects.
"We tend to use a standard treatment approach for managing oesophageal and stomach cancers. What this research suggests is that there are significant differences between male and female patients not only in how they react to chemotherapy but also how long they survive following treatment for their cancer" said study lead author Avani Athauda from Royal Marsden Hospital in Britain.
"For female patients, it may be worthwhile providing additional awareness and counselling for gastrointestinal side effects when prescribing chemotherapy," Athauda said.
For the study, the researchers conducted an analysis on data taken from four previously published large randomised trials conducted primarily in the UK.
Patients in the trials had been allocated to receive chemotherapy before undergoing surgery to remove the tumours.
In the analysis of over 3,000 patients (2,668 male patients and 597 female), the researchers found female patients were significantly more likely to experience nausea (10 per cent versus 5 per cent), vomiting (10 per cent versus 4 per cent) and diarrhoea (9 per cent versus 4 per cent).
Female patients were also significantly more likely to live longer than male ones following treatment for their cancer, said the study.
"This is a significant finding based on a large scale data set, and furthers our understanding about two types of cancer that affect almost 16,000 people each year in the UK alone," said David Cunningham, Professor at the University of London.
The study is scheduled to be presented at American Society of Clinical Oncology's(ASCO)annual meeting in Chicago.
"Cellphones may have this effect because even just seeing your phone activates thoughts of checking messages, connecting with people, access to ever-refilling information and more, in ways that are different than how we use other screens like computers and laptops," said Terri Kurtzberg, Associate Professor at Rutgers University in the US.
Published in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, researchers analysed 414 college undergraduates who were asked to solve sets of 20 word puzzles.
Some were given a break halfway through, during which they were told to choose three items to buy within a specific budget, using either their cellphone, a paper circular or a computer.
The participants who took phone breaks experienced the highest levels of mental depletion and were among the least capable of solving the puzzles afterwards.
Those who took a break on their cellphone took 19 per cent longer to do the rest of the task and solved 22 per cent fewer problems than those in the other break conditions combined.
Their post-break efficiency and quickness was comparable to those who took no break. Their number of word problems solved after the break was slightly better than those who took no break, but worse than all other participants.
"If a person's teeth fall out, there may be other underlying health concerns. Clinicians should be recommending that people in this age group receive adequate oral health care to prevent the diseases that lead to tooth loss in the first place and as potentially another way of reducing risk of future cardiovascular disease," said study lead author Hamad Mohammed Qabha, MBBS from Imam Muhammad Ibn Saud Islamic University.
The causal association between oral disease and cardiovascular disease is not well known, so researchers in this study conducted a secondary analysis of the 2014 Behaviour Risk Factor Surveillance System that looked at tooth loss not caused by trauma, as well as cardiovascular disease, including heart attack, angina and stroke.
The study included 316,588 participants from the US and territories between the ages of 40-79.
Overall eight per cent were edentulous (had no teeth) and 13 per cent had cardiovascular disease.
The percentage of people who had cardiovascular disease and were edentulous was 28 per cent, compared to only seven per cent who had cardiovascular disease but did not have missing teeth.
In addition to edentulous participants, those who reported having one to five missing teeth or six or more, but not all, missing teeth were also more likely to develop cardiovascular disease, even after adjusting for other factors such as body mass index, age, race, alcohol consumption, smoking, diabetes and dental visits.
The study was scheduled to be presented at the ACC Middle East Conference 2019 together with the 10th Emirates Cardiac Society Congress on October 3-5 in Dubai.
The study by Signify, formerly known as Philips Lighting, covered 1,000 Indian adults and 300 ophthalmologists across top 10 Indian cities.
While 65 per cent adults claimed that a healthy eyesight is a key priority for their well-being, very few people take steps to actively maintain their vision, Signify said in a statement on Wednesday.
The study also highlighted that Indians spend over 14 hours daily indoors under artificial light, and the quality of lighting becomes an important factor in maintaining eye health.
As per the research, ophthalmologists state that 3 in 4 Indians complain of eye strain after 10 hours of daily screen time, and young adults in the age group of 20-35 years frequently report eye strain, redness and irritation in the eyes.
According to Indian ophthalmologists, many factors can lead to deterioration in eyesight and eye discomfort.
Bad lighting (64 per cent), a poor lifestyle (92 per cent) and other health issues like diabetes (82 per cent) were indicated as leading factors by ophthalmologists in the country.
Almost all doctors also agreed that lighting can play an important role in maintaining eye health and that flicker, too much brightness and incorrect positioning of the light source can hurt eyes in the long term.
Congenital Zika Syndrome (CZS) refers to a collection of developmental malformations associated with Zika virus (ZIKV) congenital infection.
This syndrome includes devastating conditions that have a huge impact on the rest of the life of the individual and their family, such as smaller (microcephaly) and unfolded (lissencephalic) brains, retinal abnormalities, enlarged ventricles of the heart, a lack of the inter-hemispheric connections and calcifications in the brain.
Brazil has been widely affected by ZIKV, but 75 per cent of CZS have been found in the socio-economically disadvantaged region of the Northeast, said the study, published in the journal Science Advances.
"We knew that areas of Brazil with the lowest socioeconomic status had the highest level of developmental impairment in babies due to CZS, which is why we looked at the possible link between ZIKV and one of the potentially most important co-factors, nutrition," said researchers from University of Oxford in US and Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil.
This study showed that developmental impairment caused by ZIKV congenital infection is made much worse by environmental co-factors, specifically diets poor in protein, which explains why the devastating effects of CZS vary across ZIKV endemic regions.
The link between Zika virus infection and the CZS has been demonstrated in previous studies, which helped researchers understand how the infection affected brain growth and development of blood vessels.
These showed that ZIKV infects the cells that develop into the brain and alter genes and proteins related to the normal cell cycle and blood vessel development.
The current study also used a mouse model to replicate the effects of Zika infection in mice that had a low-protein diet, and found that several of the pathological signs found in humans appeared in the undernourished mice in a similar way.
"When we replicated the effects seen in humans who had poor diets in mice we saw similar effects in the foetuses, such as placental damage as well as poor embryonic body growth and a reduction in brain size of newborns born to undernourished pregnant mouse," said study researcher Zoltan Molnar from the University of Oxford.
According to the researchers, the mouse mothers were clearly less able to fight against ZIKV, which was shown by a robust and persistent ZIKV infection in the spleens of undernourished mothers, in contrast to healthy mice.
"Our undernourished mouse model helped us to identify the cellular mechanisms that are responsible for the differences in humans. Improving diet alone will not protect against ZIKV infections, but it can determine the severity of the CZS," Molnar said.
(IANS)
The researchers from the Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH) and School of Medicine (BUSM) did not find an amount of alcohol consumption that appeared 'safe' for bone metabolism in people living with HIV.
"As you get older, your ability to maintain adequate bone formation declines. These findings suggest that for people with HIV, alcohol may make this more difficult," said Dr Theresa W. Kim, assistant professor at BUSM in a paper published in the journal Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research.
Low bone density is common among people living with HIV, even those who have successfully suppressed their viral loads with antiretroviral therapy.
The finding highlights an under-recognized circumstance in which people with HIV infection often find themselves.
"Their viral load can be well controlled by efficacious medications while other health conditions and risks that commonly co-occur -- like substance use and other medical conditions -- are less well-addressed," said Dr Richard Saitz, professor of community health sciences at BUSPH.
The researchers used data from 198 participants in the Boston ARCH cohort that included people living with HIV and current or past alcohol or drug use disorder.
For the current study, the researchers analyzed participants' blood samples, looking at biomarkers associated with bone metabolism (a life-long process of absorbing old bone tissue and creating new bone tissue) and a biomarker associated with recent alcohol consumption.
"If I were counseling a patient who was concerned about their bone health, besides checking vitamin D and recommending exercise, I would caution them about alcohol use," said Kim.
(IANS)