medicalcondition:infection

Les femmes vivent plus vieilles que les hommes, c’est à cause de leurs hormones.
Elles perdent moins vite leurs lymphocytes.

Women’s immune systems hold the secret to longer life - Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/10056901/Womens-immune-systems-hold-the-secret-to-longer-life.html

A new study has shown that levels of key white blood cells, which are responsible for fighting off infections, become lower in men as they get older compared to women.
The average life expectancy for men in the UK is 79 years old, while for women it is 82 years old. In some parts of the world, such as Japan, the gap is even larger, with women living on average nearly six years longer.
(…)
Scientists in Japan have now uncovered another reason after finding that the levels of white blood cells and other parts of the immune system called cytokines decline faster in men.
They believe this might be because female sex hormones such as oestrogen can boost the immune system’s response to infections.

Study: cannabis compound might have use as an HIV drug (Wired UK)
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-05/1/cannabis-hiv-drug

The way it works is by interaction with the cannabinoid type-2 (CB2) receptor in white blood cells, specifically the macrophages. Macrophages are one of many types of white blood cell in humans. While the main cells, the lymphocytes, do the bulk of the work in fighting infection by tracking down and destroying germs with antibodies, macrophages form a kind of backup part of the immune system — attracted to damaged cells, they surround and engulf them while also alerting lymphocytes of new dangers.

Macrophages have an unpleasant weakness, though, in that they are one of the first types of cells to be infected by HIV when it enters the body. The virus can live inside macrophages for days, weeks or months, travelling around the body, infecting other cells and acting as an extremely effective pollinator of HIV.

Stopping the HIV virus from infecting macrophages is one method researchers are investigating, as it would dramatically curtail the speed at which the infection progresses and would give time for other antiretrovirals to help keep it at bay, or even remove it.

The CB2 receptor in macrophages is stimulated normally when THC enters the bloodstream, so nothing unusual there. However, it appears that macrophages that have their CB2 receptor stimulated are stronger when it comes to fighting and weakening the HIV-1 virus.

This was discovered when the research team from the Temple University School of Medicine in Philadelphia infected macrophages with the HIV-1 virus, before then exposing cell cultures to one of three types of synthetic THC that specifically target the CB2 receptor. Comparing these cell cultures after seven days against a control group revealed a clear decrease in the rate of HIV-1 infection. Effectively, the macrophages had become stronger at keeping the HIV-1 virus out.

...

An added benefit of targeting only the CB2 receptor is that its only affect is to stimulate the macrophages — the psychoactive component of THC is experienced when the CB1 receptor gets targeted. Synthetic THC compounds can be produced to only target the CB2 receptor in this way. THC has also been shown in studies not to suppress the immune systems of those who take it, meaning that the findings could provide hints at a future drug that, in combination with other methods, could be used for suppressing the HIV-1 virus.

The study has been published in The Journal of Leukocyte Biology.

HIV vaccine study halted by US government over unsuccessful shots | Society | guardian.co.uk
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/apr/25/hiv-aids-vaccine-study-us-government?CMP=twt_fd

The US government halted a large HIV vaccine study on Thursday, saying the experimental shots were not successful in preventing infection.

Nor did the shots reduce the amount of the Aids virus in the blood when people who had been vaccinated later became infected, the National Institutes of Health said.

...

A safety review this week found that slightly more study participants who had received the vaccine later became infected with HIV. It’s not clear why. But the difference wasn’t statistically significant, meaning it may be due to chance.

Controversies in Hospital Infection Prevention : How strong is our first line of detection ?
http://haicontroversies.blogspot.ca/2013/03/how-strong-is-our-first-line-of.html

The sad fact is that this level of clinical microbiology laboratory support is far from the norm. The trend over the past two decades has been toward consolidation and outsourcing of laboratory services (...)

while outsourcing microbiology to a regional lab may make short-term financial and technical sense for some hospitals, it also removes lab support further from the front line of patient care and infection prevention, prolongs turnaround times, and comes with a host of pre- and post-analytic problems.

If current fiscal and political trends continue, with additional cuts to public health infrastructure and CDC’s budget, it is difficult to imagine that we can do much in the short term to shore up our surveillance capabilities to respond to the CRE threat.

sur les bactéries #résistantes, une critique de la recherche d’économies dans les #hôpitaux qui les pousse à se débarrasser de la compétence de labo

les CRE, bactéries super-#résistantes aux antibiotiques, un #cauchemar de #santé_publique aux #Etats-Unis

CDC Warns of Resistance ’Nightmare’ | Wired Science | Wired.com
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/03/cre-cdc

The underlying risk here is that effectively untreatable CRE will spread out from hospitals and into the wider world, where it will become vastly more common and much harder to detect. That is not an unreasonable fear (...)

So what’s to be done? In their press push yesterday, the CDC reviewed six steps that they first published last year in a CRE Toolkit and want health care facilities to take (...) an important point is that none of this is required, and none of this is funded.

First UK victim of Sars-like virus dies at a hospital in Birmingham | Mail Online
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2280676/First-UK-victim-Sars-like-virus-dies-hospital-Birmingham.html

A man infected with a Sars-like illness has become the first person in Britain to die from the virus.

The 39-year-old, who died in the intensive care unit at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital, caught the illness from his father, who had become infected while travelling in Pakistan and the Middle East.

So far there have only been four confirmed cases of the illness in Britain and 12 anywhere in the world, with six deaths.

The illness, known as novel #coronavirus, causes a cough, breathing difficulties and fever which can lead to pneumonia and kidney failure.

It is from the same virus family as Sars, which claimed 900 lives worldwide in 2002 and 2003.

But scientists say novel coronavirus is nowhere near as dangerous as it has difficulty spreading between humans.

The man who died on Sunday was suffering from a long-term condition which made him more susceptible.

Le nouveau coronavirus (#NCoV , grippe #chiroptère) provoque le premier décès au Royaume-Uni. Le patient était porteur d’une pathologie de longue durée qui avait fragilisé son système immunitaire.

Par ailleurs, les premières études sur ce nouveau coronavirus (identifié en septembre 2012) commencent à sortir http://afludiary.blogspot.fr/2013/02/mbio-ncov-affinity-for-replication-in.html (synthèse, avec lien vers l’étude originale dans le billet). Le papier détaille la voie d’infection (voie aérienne) et indique des moyens de traitement possibles (interféron).

Regulators Discover a Hidden Viral Gene in Commercial GMO Crops
http://independentsciencenews.org/commentaries/regulators-discover-a-hidden-viral-gene-in-commercial-gmo-cr

In the course of analysis to identify potential allergens in GMO crops, the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA) has belatedly discovered that the most common genetic regulatory sequence in commercial GMOs also encodes a significant fragment of a viral gene (Podevin and du Jardin 2012). This finding has serious ramifications for crop biotechnology and its regulation, but possibly even greater ones for consumers and farmers. This is because there are clear indications that this viral gene (called Gene VI) might not be safe for human consumption. It also may disturb the normal functioning of crops, including their natural pest resistance.

#ogm #santé

The Honey Cap - The Well-Timed Period
http://thewelltimedperiod.blogspot.fr/2007/05/honey-cap.html

Saviez vous que le diaphragme au miel est un moyen de contraception. Je ne sais pas si on en trouve facilement en France, mais j’ai une amie qui va les chercher en Angleterre.

The Honey Cap is just a regular diaphragm [usually a smaller size one, like the 60 mm] used in combination with honey, instead of a regular spermicide. The honey is added to the inside of the dome, and the diaphragm is soaked in honey before use. [When not in use it’s kept in a jar of honey.] The Honey Cap can be left in place for up to three days, as opposed to a maximum of 24 hours for the diaphragm-with-spermicide method.

#Shirley-Bond #contraception #diaphragme #miel #england

Israelis find possible cure for malaria
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/NewsItem/tabid/178/nid/23552/Default.aspx

The body’s immune system sends antibodies to combat the disruptive proteins, but the Plasmodium parasite is able to use one type of protein to keep the antibodies busy while producing a different protein to continue the infection.

The Israeli researchers have unlocked the unique DNA sequence that allows the Plasmodium parasite to do this.

#recherche #paludisme #santé #malaria

New #coronavirus caused infections in Jordan in April, retrospective tests show | Calgary Herald
http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/confirms+more+fatal+cases+virus+Jordan+possible+virus+spread/7634150/story.html
(encore et toujours les Canadiens en pointe sur ce sujet)

The agency says retrospective testing of stored samples show two people who died in Jordan in April were infected with the virus, which is from the same virus family as SARS.

Ce qui porte à 9 le nombre de cas confirmés de grippe #chiroptère.

Nouveauté, l’un des deux décès jordaniens concerne un professionnel de santé.

The Jordanian cases may signal spread from patients to health-care workers happened there. But it’s too soon to conclude that, said WHO spokesperson Gregory Hartl, who noted the health-care workers and the patients could have been infected for a common — and as yet unidentified — source.

Les choses sont encore assez floues pour cet épisode d’avril, puisque l’article du Calgary Herald se termine par cette phrase (sans lien logique avec ce qui précède) :

A report on the outbreak — noted in a weekly disease report from the European Centre for Disease Control in May — said seven nurses and a doctor were among 11 cases identified in the outbreak at a hospital in Zarqa, Jordan.

Mais dans cet article du Jordan Times du 21/04/12 , cité hier 30/11/12 sur un blog spécialisé, 9 cas seulement sont mentionnés : 7 infirmières dont une décédée, 1 médecin et le frère de l’infirmière décédée.
http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2012/11/jordan-april-reports-on-the-novel-coronavirus.html

L’information nouvelle est donc la confirmation du nouveau coronavirus pour deux des prélèvements faits sur des patients d’avril mais testés en octobre. Ils avaient déjà été testés – négativement – en avril par le même laboratoire, NAMRU-3 (US Naval Medical Research Unit au Caire), mais le coronavirus n’avait pas encore été identifié.

Information détaillée, là : CIDRAP (Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy de l’Université du Minnesota.
http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/cidrap/content/other/sars/news/nov3012corona.html

Dépistage du #sida : 60% des jeunes Américains ignorent leur séropositivité - Maxisciences
http://www.maxisciences.com/sida/depistage-du-sida-60-des-jeunes-americains-ignorent-leur-seropositivit

Selon les autorités sanitaires américaines, près de 60% des jeunes Américains âgés de 13 à 24 ans ignorent qu’ils sont infectés par le #VIH.

C’est un constat préoccupant qu’a révélé mardi un rapport publié par les autorités sanitaires américaines. Celui-ci révèle que près de 60% des Américains âgés de 13 à 24 ans ignorent qu’ils sont infectés par le VIH. Les Centre fédéraux de contrôle et de prévention des maladies américains (CDC pour Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) précisent que ces jeunes Américains représentent 26% des nouvelles infections chaque année aux #Etats-Unis et 7% du 1,1 million d’Américains vivant avec le virus du sida.

Le rapport cité par l’AFP souligne que les chiffres de 2010 montrent que, parmi ces jeunes, les homosexuels, les bisexuels et les Noirs sont les plus touchés par le VIH. D’un point de vue ethnique, on constate que 20% des infections concernent des Blancs et des hispaniques tandis que 57% concernent des Noirs. Du point de vue de la sexualité, près de 75% des 12.200 nouvelles infections par le VIH annuellement recensées chez les 13-24 ans sont dues à des relations homosexuelles. Les homosexuels hommes courent en effet un risque nettement plus élevé d’infection que les hétérosexuels notamment en raison de relations multiples souvent non-protégées, relèvent les CDC.

Pour faire suite au message http://seenthis.net/messages/91689 de @opironet, un article de BBC News du 25 octobre, ’Faecal transplant’ clue to treating gut bug : http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-20081895
La #Transfusion_fécale comme remède à l’infection par le Clostridium difficile .
Le docteur Alisdair MacConnachie qui se revendique le seul utilisateur de la méthode au Royaume-Uni reconnait que la méthode est carrément répugnante mais efficace en dernier ressort.

Dans un article précédent (11/12/11) du même BBC News, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-15113440, le même médecin, à qui l’on demandait pourquoi ça ne se pratiquait pas plus, déclarait explicitement :

“It sounds disgusting, it is disgusting and I think people are probably worried about approaching patients and discussing it.”

Un problème que ne rencontre pas le gastroentérologue de New York spécialiste du traitement.

He says he now gets between two and four emails a day from people who want a transplant. So far he has carried out the procedure 42 times.
He remembers the first in 1999…

Ceci dit 42 en 12 ans, ça fait un tous les 3 ou 4 mois. Rapporté aux 2 à 4 mails par jour, ça fait jamais qu’un taux de passage à l’acte de 3‰…

A vot’ santé ! :-)

Poop Therapy: More Than You Probably Wanted to Know About Fecal Transplants

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2012/10/what-is-fecal-transplant-difficile-bacteria

Gross as it sounds, an infusion of good bacteria—in the form of someone else’s excrement—seems to help fight some infections.

Fecal transplantation isn’t a new idea; the first reported case of someone receiving the treatment was in 1958. Undoubtedly, the “ick” factor has limited its appeal. But given the emerging evidence of effectiveness in some hard-to-treat cases, doctors and patients are taking much more notice. So here are some things you might want to know.

First, is a ’fecal transplant’ what it sounds like?

Yes, pretty much. In the treatment (also called fecal microbiota therapy or fecal bacteriotherapy), a small amount of human waste is inserted into the patient’s gut, or gastrointestinal system, via colonoscopy, enema, or nasogastric tube. Some doctors obtain the “medicine” from the patient’s spouse, child, or friend; others find it preferable to work with anonymous donors. While most prepare a liquid solution, frozen feces have also been used successfully; so far no one has standardized the treatment protocol.

Of course, it’s not the fecal matter per se that’s of interest, but the fact that it’s swarming with microbes. (Donors are screened for the presence of any infectious diseases that could be transmitted through their feces.) The goal is to restore the natural balance of organisms in the gastrointestinal tract. Any number of factors and conditions can knock this balance out of whack, including many antibiotics that are used to fight infections. The drugs kill the pathogens but they also wipe out the beneficial bacteria that live in the gut; the fecal transplant allows these helpful microbes to recolonize the digestive organs.

#Santé #Caca #Transfusion_fécale

Undead : The Rabies Virus Remains a Medical Mystery | Wired
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/07/ff_rabies

un article intéressant sur la rage
#santé

Le saviez-vous, il existe un #cancer nommé Merkel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkel_cell_carcinoma
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/df/Merkel_cell_carcinoma_-_very_high_mag.jpg/230px-Merkel_cell_carcinoma_-_very_high_mag.jpg

#Grèce "Certains ont été obligés d’interrompre leur #chimio" - Le Nouvel Observateur
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/le-dossier-de-l-obs/20120615.OBS8817/grece-certains-ont-ete-obliges-d-interrompre-leur-chimio.html

Pas de problèmes pour les riches
Les autres pharmacies ont cessé de les distribuer ou bien exigent désormais le paiement immédiat de leurs clients. Pas de problèmes pour les riches. Pour les autres, c’est devenu une tragédie, et « certains ont même été obligés d’interrompre leur chimio », reconnaît George Samati, vice-président de l’Association des Malades atteints du Cancer. Celle-ci a dû ouvrir deux hot lines en urgence pour informer les malades des lieux où ils peuvent se procurer leur traitement. Et une fois sur place, il faut prendre son mal en patience.

La « chimiothérapie » libérale fait des ravages - Libération
http://www.liberation.fr/monde/2012/05/11/la-chimiotherapie-liberale-fait-des-ravages_818199

« La chimiothérapie peut faire du mal en début de traitement du cancer. Mais un moyen terme ça guérit », affirmait Mariano Rajoy en fin d’année dans une métaphore incongrue dont il est coutumier. Mais de nombreux Espagnols des classes moyennes - qui avaient subi de plein fouet la crise liée, notamment, à l’explosion de la bulle immobilière en 2008 et qui s’étaient tournées vers le PP - ont aujourd’hui le sentiment que le remède va les tuer. « On est en train de couler, comme la Grèce ou le Portugal »,

Saving the Cancer - ’Greece sacrificed in name of dying EU’ (RT)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcGaWn50p5Q

Hilary Clinton et le cancer de la dette
http://monkeymonk.org/?p=1165
http://monkeymonk.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Hilary-Clinton-et-le-cancer-de-la-dette.jpg

Cheer up, chemo kid !
https://dl.dropbox.com/s/w4sttcc7evge501/cheerupchemokid.jpeg

#santé

La bactérie qui mange la chair !
http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/14/necrotizing-fasciitis-the-flesh-eating-disease-one-georgia-grad-stu

Although necrotizing fasciitis is rare, it’s a very serious disease. Within a short period of time, it can destroy skin, fat and tissue surrounding muscles.

#it_has_begun

6 Kinds of Pills Big Pharma Tries to Get You Hooked on for Life | Martha Rosenberg (AlterNet)
http://www.alternet.org/story/155170/6_kinds_of_pills_big_pharma_tries_to_get_you_hooked_on_for_life?page=entir

Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in the late 1990s, the number of people on prescription drugs for life has ballooned. Why has Big Pharma failed to produce new antibiotics for deadly infections like MRSA (methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus), VRE (vancomycin-resistant enterococci), C. Difficile and Acinetobacter baumannii even as they leap from hospital to community settings? Because there is no money in it. (...) Source: AlterNet

from @jean_no, Les #jeux_vidéo et la mort // abstractmachine » Exhausting gameplay
http://www.abstractmachine.net/blog/exhausting-gameplay

The need for death in gaming is multifaceted. The cynical argument, largely based on the arcade experience, might describe death in gaming as an economical equation: in order to make more money, games needed to provoke death as quickly as possible in order to get to the next “insert coin”. But death in gaming has been with us practically since the beginning, or at least since 1962′s Space War, long before the video game arcade phenomenon became an economic reality.

Ruth Franklin: Was ‘Frankenstein’ Really About Childbirth? | The New Republic
http://www.tnr.com/article/books-and-arts/101435/mary-shelley-frankenstein-godwin-bodleian-oxford

On display are numerous artifacts both personal and literary from the lives of the Shelleys, including manuscript pages from the notebook in which Mary wrote Frankenstein (with editing in the margins by her husband), which have never before been shown publicly in the United States. But it was Wollstonecraft’s scribbled note, in which she referred to her baby as “the animal”— the same word that the scientist in Frankenstein would use to describe his own notorious creation

WHO meeting calls for mutant-flu research to be published ‘in full.’
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/02/who-meeting-calls-for-mutant-flu-research-to-be-published-in-full.html

A two-day meeting of 22 experts convened in Geneva by the World Health Organization (WHO) has concluded that two controversial flu studies should be published in full. The research — in which ferret-transmissible strains of avian H5N1 flu virus were created — will be published after a delay of probably a few months, which the experts argue is needed to explain better the public-health benefits of the research and allay public concerns over the safety of the work

papier du NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/18/health/details-of-bird-flu-research-will-be-released.html

une video du débat
http://blogs.nature.com/news/2012/02/video-debating-h5n1-and-dual-use-research.html

calculs des taux de fatalité
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=h5n1-bird-flu-case-fatality-calculations

#h5n1 #recherche #censure #santé #bioarmement

Je sais enfin pourquoi je déteste les chats - The Atlantic
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/8873/?single_page=true

#HIV Cost Effectiveness | Prevention Programs | CDC
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/topics/preventionprograms/ce/index.htm

#sida #santé #économie #prévention : les bases de calcul du rapport coût/efficacité

Amnesiac cellist astounds doctors with musical memory | Science | The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/nov/13/amnesiac-cellist-has-musical-memory

He can hardly remember a thing. He has no memory of any personal or professional events," Carsten Finke, a neurologist at Charité university hospital in Berlin, told the Guardian. “He is living in the moment, more or less. He has lost his whole life.”

Doctors made their discovery when they tested PM’s ability to recall musical information and found he could identify the scales, rhythms and intervals of pieces they played him. The man went on to score normally on a standard test for musical memory.

But it was later tests that surprised doctors most, when the cellist showed he could learn new pieces of music, even though he failed to remember simple information, such as the layout of his flat, who his doctors were and what medicines he should take.

Etonnant...

#santé #amnésie #musique

le #vaccin anti-#paludisme RTS,S annoncé trop tôt ?

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/111026/full/478439a.html
Malaria #vaccine results face scrutiny : Nature News

it is too early to tell whether RTS,S actually protects against #malaria, or merely delays infection

Un virus de type « keylogger » a envahi les ordinateurs du poste de commande des drones militaires américains :

Exclusive: Computer Virus Hits U.S. Drone Fleet
►http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/10/virus-hits-drone-fleet

Military network security specialists aren’t sure whether the virus and its so-called “keylogger” payload were introduced intentionally or by accident; it may be a common piece of malware that just happened to make its way into these sensitive networks. The specialists don’t know exactly how far the virus has spread. But they’re sure that the infection has hit both classified and unclassified machines at Creech. That raises the possibility, at least, that secret data may have been captured by the keylogger, and then transmitted over the public internet to someone outside the military chain of command.

La guerre électronique franchit la une nouvelle étape, non ? L’info paraît tout aussi intéressante que StuxNet, même si le virus ne devait pas cibler spécifiquement ces ordinateurs là en particulier...

#guerre_électronique #usa #drone #virus #sécurité_informatique #armée #logiciel_malveillant #malware #keylogger