REPOST: Healing damaged hearts with stem cell implants gets new technique

According to a recent report published in Singularity Hub, cardiologists may soon be able to use stem cell therapy to heal the damaged hearts to prevent heart failure.
 

IMAGE SOURCE: Singularity Hub.com

We’re much better at saving the lives of those who suffer a heart attack these days. Sadly, many people survive a heart attack only to later succumb to heart failure from the damage it caused. Modern methods help heal the heart somewhat after a heart attack, but cardiologists think stem cell therapy might one day offer a far superior alternative.

Stem cells aren’t just good for growing new organs, they can also heal old or damaged ones from the inside. Thousands of patients whose hearts were damaged in a heart attack have undergone some form of stem cell therapy worldwide, and the results are promising. But there’s a problem. Once in the heart, the cells don’t tend to stay put.

Dr. W. Robert Taylor, professor of medicine at Emory and Georgia Tech and director of Emory’s cardiology division, recently co-authored a paper on a new technique that may significantly increase the efficacy of stem cell therapy in the heart.

The new procedure, tested in mice, encapsulates stem cells in alginate, a gummy substance derived from algae and used widely (and safely) in human products. Thus confined, the cells stick around longer and deliver greater healing to the heart muscle.

Dr. Taylor told Singularity Hub that current methods attempt to repair damaged parts of the heart by reintroducing blood flow using stents, surgery, or clot-busting drugs.

Encapsulated stem cells prior to implantation.
There are approximately 200 cells per capsule.
IMAGE SOURCE: Singularity Hub.com

“While there are great benefits from these approaches, and great strides have been made in decreasing mortality and morbidity from heart attacks, these approaches do not regenerate new tissue or grow new blood vessels. They essentially mitigate the damage.”

“It just makes sense that if many of the cells that you administer either die or are expelled from the beating heart, then the efficacy is limited.”

Read the rest of the article here.  

Dr. Rachna Mehra helps patients along the path to physical and mental wellness. Visit this Facebook page to learn about the latest trends in health and medicine.

REPOST: Why sleep is the no. 1 most important thing for a better body

Maintaining a healthy body means more than just exercising and having a healthy diet. Many people don't realize that getting enough sleep is integral to the body's wellbeing. Shape.com explains the how sleep helps maintain fitness.

Image source: Shape.com

Imagine two women you know: One is your model of fitness success (She clearly knows how to slim down correctly and has the body to show for it), and the other is what you fear. This friend has her heart in the right place, but no matter how hard she works, she still struggles with the process and doesn’t have the body she wants. The troubling part is that when you talk to both, they share a common approach:

1. They eat meals that focus on lean protein and vegetables.
2.  They exercise at least three times per week, focusing on both weights and cardio.
3. They know which foods are truly healthy and which they need to limit—and they do.

And yet one friend—the one who continues to struggle—can’t maintain her focus. She has trouble controlling her hunger, always craves sweets, and, despite her biggest efforts in the gym, she doesn’t seem to achieve the same results as someone else following the same program.

The problem might seem obvious at first. After all, one woman strays from her diet more than the other. And if exercise “isn’t working,” it probably means she just doesn’t really know how to train.

Maybe it’s genetics. Maybe she’s lazy or lacks willpower. Or maybe, diet or exercise isn’t the real problem.

Sleep Controls Your Diet
The debate about the best way to achieve a healthy weight always revolves around eating and movement. If you want to look better, the most common suggestion is “eat less and move more.” But it’s not that simple, or even accurate. Sometimes you want to eat less and move more, but it seems impossible to do so. And there might be a good reason: Between living your life, working, and exercising, you’re forgetting to sleep enough. Or maybe, more importantly, you don’t realize that sleep is the key to being rewarded for your diet and fitness efforts. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 35 percent of people are sleep deprived. And when you consider that the statistic for obesity is nearly identical, it’s easy to connect the dots and discover that the connection is not a coincidence.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Dr. Rachna Mehra believes that maintaining a healthy lifestyle is key to overall wellness. Follow this Twitter account to learn more about new trends in traditional and modern medicine.

REPOST: Healthy aging for a sustainable workforce

HuffingtonPost.com discusses the significance of wellness programs in creating a productive, sustainable workforce.

Today's employers face many challenges in their efforts to compete with an increasingly global marketplace. For years the cost of health care deservedly grabbed all the headlines as employers struggled to bear the costs of health care. As the American workforce ages in place, employers have become increasingly aware of how chronic illness and poor lifestyle choices impact presenteeism and productivity. Often, it's the more senior members of work teams that play critical roles as the most skilled and seasoned contributors.

Today's wellness programs look to address both of these problems with innovative tools that assist people in choosing healthier lifestyles as well as managing their chronic conditions more successfully.

Image Source: www.blog.resourcepro.com

There are currently more than 76 million "baby boomers," those born between the years of 1960 and 1964, who are growing older and working longer. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the proportion of workers over the age of 55 will increase steadily to 20 percent by 2020. No matter what the reason -- struggling economy, poor 401K performance, continued financial need -- people today are working longer than ever before, a trend that doesn't appear to be going away any time soon.

Is that a bad thing? Not necessarily. But with this trend of working well into and past our 50s come a number of new issues that employers need to be more conscious of and carefully consider, specifically, how to keep a young workforce healthy. So the mission is to effectively manage workforces in a way that is mutually beneficial to both employees and the bottom line. And, the only way to address the potential negative impact of both chronic disease and other health issues on the aging U.S. workforce is to create a sustained culture of health -- one that emphasizes the full spectrum of health and wellness of all workers for the duration of their "working lifetimes," not just when they are older.

Evidence continues to mount demonstrating that health behaviors have the single greatest influence on overall health and ultimately, our lives. Yet, according to multiple sources, nearly 67 percent of American adults are overweight or obese, 60 percent don't exercise regularly, and surprisingly, still more than 20 percent smoke. All of which can lead to serious chronic conditions including heart disease, which is the leading cause of death for Americans every year -- more people than all forms of cancer combined -- and Type 2 diabetes, which is a leading cause of death in both men and women in the U.S. These few facts alone go to show that we need to change unhealthy behaviors to healthy behaviors before chronic conditions set in.

Image Source: www.groupepremiermedical.ca

How do we do that? A total population health approach that incorporates incentives, education in the form of decision aids, and personalized coaching is critical to success. It ensures that the entire workforce -- including the aging population -- is aware of the significance of good health and well-being, provided with access to the information they need to get more involved in their health and health care decisions, and surrounded by engaging, personalized programs and resources that will shape their attitudes in a way that leads to impactful behavior change to maintain healthy aging. A critical step to inspiring this type of long-term behavior change through integrated health and multi-tiered wellness programs is demonstrating the value of participation to employees. By getting involved and staying involved in these programs, employees will not only become healthier but also reap tangible savings for themselves in the form of lower premiums and reduced overall health care costs. The educational resources and interactions with qualified, registered health professionals allows for a more personalized discussion and understanding of risk factors and methods for improvement. Self-assessments and bio screenings provide an invaluable way for people to benchmark where they are today and then to map out a plan and measure progress. Innovative personalized programs can allow individuals to add to or edit their goals, and select challenges that interest them. Gaming and sharing components also encourage continued engagement, ongoing participation, and achievement of goals. Measurement enables the employer to better identify and target individuals that may need support as well as provide employees with motivation to help them achieve and surpass their personal goals.

Image Source: www.americasagingworkforce.com

As the American workforce continues to age, employers must look to create a true health culture that engages all employees and drives meaningful behavior change in order to fight against spiraling health care costs and the epidemic of poor health. Meaningful, personalized, whole-person engagement ensures that the investment in health and wellness will be maximized for both the companies and people who need it to work. If employers and employees buy in to this, both will be happy and healthy -- and productive -- for years to come.

As a regenerative medicine specialist, Dr. Rachna Mehra helps patients reverse the natural aging process of their bodies through proper nutrition, active lifestyle, and various treatments, such as stem cell therapy and prolotherapy. More articles on the path toward graceful aging can be found on this blog.

REPOST: What’s In a Bug? Lots of Healthy Nutrients

Eating insects is usually seen only as a gastronomic daredevilry. Outside the Western world, insects are regularly eaten, and recent studies show that eating bugs is tantamount to eating tiny concentrated packages of nutrients. Time.com’s Alexandra Sifferlin lists down the nutritional contents of insect varieties, which can be viewed in full here:

Image source: Time.com

There’s a new movement to introduce bugs to our buffets, and none other than the United Nations is leading the charge to eat more insects. The organization argues that more bug consumption could be critical for fighting food insecurity.

Earlier this summer, the U.N. released a report entitled “Edible Insects,” in which the group estimated that current food production would have to double in order to feed the nine billion people expected to populate the world by 2050. With land already stretched thin and densely occupied, and with many water resources overfished, feeding that population may become increasingly difficult.

New food resources are clearly needed. And the U.N. is pushing western populations, including Americans, to try eating bugs. In other regions of the world, like Thailand, insects are part of the daily diet; those living in Africa, Asia and Latin America regularly consume insects since many meat sources are not widely available and insects are a high source of protein.

These edible insects, which include critters like crickets and beetles, serve as tiny packets of amino acids, vitamins, carbohydrates and unsaturated fatty acids. And perhaps more importantly, they are a sustainable source of sustenance that doesn’t require extensive energy to reproduce. “There are other substances in insects that are good for human health; for example, antibacterial proteins and peptides, enzymes and hormones,” the authors of the report write.

But exactly how nutritious are insects? If the tiny critters are going to take off in the U.S., they had better pack a nutritious punch that helps people to overcome the ick factor of crunching on wings, antennae and other body parts.

So in the interest of eating for a sustainable future, read on for the five edible insects with the most nutritional benefits (nutritional values measured per 100 grams).

Crickets

Image source: Time.com

Crickets are popular on menus in Thailand and other Asian countries and their calcium content makes them one of the more common insects eaten (or at least tried) in the West.

“Protein is a big part of their value nutritionally, but they also tend to be calorie- and lipid-rich and they are generally good sources of vitamins and minerals,” says May Berenbaum, the head of the Department of Entomology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “There are ecological and economic benefits, too. [In general] some insects can be raised on foods that aren’t consumed by humans and rearing insects tends to produce far fewer greenhouse gas emissions.”

Protein: 12.9 grams

Fat: 5.5 grams fat

Carbohydrates: 5.1 grams

While crickets contain some fat, some of that fat is of the healthier, unsaturated kind, and roasting the insects can keep the fat that you consume to a minimum. If you’re curious about how crickets compare to a similar sized serving of steak:

Steak, sirloin (100 grams) Protein: 30.55 grams

Fat: 5.79 grams

Carbohydrates: 0

Grasshoppers

Image source: Time.com

They’re similar to crickets, but grasshoppers have a shorter antenna and are more active during the day. Most commonly found and consumed in areas with grasslands, the writers of the U.N. report maintain that the critters are simple to cook, and especially tasty when roasted and seasoned with onion, garlic, chili or soy sauce. Their nutritional content makes them a hearty snack or addition to most meals.

And if the idea of finding, cleaning, and handling grasshoppers makes you nervous, designer Mansour Ourasanah has created a product called Lepsis, a trendy food dehydrator type of device that grows and dispatches grasshoppers for your plate and was featured in the July issue of Wired “Insects were a great source of protein, so on days when we didn’t have enough to eat at home, scavenging for grasshoppers and crickets was a strategy we could always rely on, and nature never failed to deliver,” Ourasanah, who is originally from the African nation of Togo, told Wired. Watch the video of his grasshopper-eating tips here.

Protein: 20.6 grams

Fat: 6.1 grams

Carbohydrates: 3.9 grams

The protein content in grasshoppers comes pretty close to that of a similar-sized serving of chicken breast, but with a bit more fat.

Chicken breast, roasted (100 grams) Protein: 31.02 grams

Fat: 3.57 grams

Carbohydrates: 0

The full article tackles three more nutritious edible insects.

Dr. Rachna Mehra believes that a healthy lifestyle is the key to wellness. Keeping count of nutrient intake is crucial to a proper assessment of one’s health. Visit this Facebook page for more health and wellness trends.

The search for the true signs of aging

There was a time the hype was all about looking young forever. This is the reason cosmetic plastic surgery procedures, both minimally invasive and surgical, have posted significant industry growth through the years.

Image Source: nydailynews.com

But these days, instead of seeking new anti-aging methods, scientists are seeking meaningful markers of aging. The quest centers on true biological markers that could reveal more about current and future health, instead of the usual suspects such a wrinkles and age-related illnesses, which are no longer deemed accurate indicators of how fast aging is occurring as a process. Experts note that acceptable biomarkers should predict the remaining lifespan of a middle-aged person more accurately than chronological age does. Moreover, scientists agree that indicators should paint a consistent picture of biological age.

Image Source: webmd.com

Though it may still take years before health experts settle on widely accepted indicators of aging, a couple of researches are showing promise. These include a study that identified visual contrast sensitivity or the eye’s ability to pick out very lightly shaded images on white backgrounds as one of the top indicators of healthy aging in older women. Another study also unveiled a DNA biomarker that offers a new way of gauging age.  

Image Source: oxfordjournals.org

Age management and regenerative medicine specialist Dr. Rachna Mehra believes that healthy aging is possible through proper nutrition and an active lifestyle. Get more tips on how to age gracefully from this Facebook page.

Botox beyond cosmetics

Botox, popularly known as a celebrity addiction or a fountain of youth for the vain, has caused a number of celebrities to come out regretting Botox abuse as part of their anti-aging battle. Nicole Kidman’s almost ludicrous joker face is a warning sign that, despite being as commonplace now as dental work, Botox injections for cosmetic purposes could go awry.

Image source: Ripley

Few know that Botox is not the exclusive province of cosmetic surgeons and dermatologists. Increasingly, it has evolved into a medicinal tool for certain therapies. Some of its non-cosmetic uses, which are put forward on Dr. Rachna Mehra’s website, are migraine prevention for patients who suffer intense, chronic headaches for more than four hours at a time, treatment of involuntary tics and spasms, such as those occurring in the eye area, and controlling hyperhidrosis, or profuse sweating of the armpits.

Image source: Douglas J. Van Putten

These indications complement those recommended by this website, although the latter provides an extended range of function. Botox is also employed for countering muscle stiffness, urinal incontinence, and overactive bladders.

Image source: Dr. K's Med Spa

Wariness accompanies all Botox administrations outside of aesthetic purpose. After all, Botox, or Botulinum toxin, is derived from bacteria and could easily tip toward fatal doses if medical care is remiss. When this toxin goes by its trade name, popularized by the most reliable cosmetic surgeons and dermatologists in the world, people tend to take its intrinsic properties for granted. The abovementioned indications are premised on responsible use, even if a Hollywood star just needs it for her forehead.


Dr. Rachna Mehra has extensive practice in a range of therapies, which includes cosmetic and curative administrations of Botox. This Facebook page is an easy reference for new therapies that target a variety of physical conditions and ailments.

Traditional medicines vindicated by modern science

Not all medicines we take for granted today are derived from experimentation from a lab. Many of today’s over-the-counter and prescription medicines owe their existence primarily through renewed research on traditional medicines since the 19th and 20th Centuries.

A few of these traditional medicines and medical practices now found to be effective have become popular, enough to be adopted by major medical facilities or become household names.


Willow bark and aspirin

Image Source: bulkherbstore.com

 















Willow bark has been used in the temporary treatment of aches and pains since time immemorial. Cultures as far apart as the Ancient Greeks and the Native American peoples have used willow bark as a medical staple for much of their medical history. Willow bark is now known to contain salicylic acid, which is a precursor to aspirin.


Cinchona and Quinine

Image Source: carlsbergfondet.dk

 















First discovered by the Quechan people of Peru and later by Jesuit Missionaries, quinine is an anti-inflammatory drug taken from the bark of the cinchona tree. This drug is today used in the treatment of malaria and today is still used to treat people with malaria when more modern antimalarial drugs cannot be used, such as in pregnant women.


Acupuncture

Image Source: telegraph.co.uk

 
















Acupuncture is a Chinese medical philosophy that involves curing ailments and relieving pain through the administering of needles to certain points in the body. It is now known to be surprisingly effective, though how it works is still poorly understood. It is currently being offered by respected mainstream medical centers for this reason.


Science has revealed time and again that not a few ancient medical practices such as these have a very real and positive effect on the human body. This has made many forms of traditional medicine worth a second look.



Dr. Rachna Mehra focuses on a number of medical treatments that rely on traditional and alternative methods. Visit this website for more information.