Kidney Transplant

What is it?
Kidney transplant is a surgical procedure in which the damaged kidneys of a person are replaced with a functional kidney from a person who is alive or has recently died। Although a kidney transplant operation is a simpler procedure than most organ transplants, there are certain factors that are of paramount importance for the success of the procedure. To maintain the viability of the donor kidney, it has to be transported in a salt water solution and can only be preserved for a couple of days. During this time, the blood group of the donor and the recipient are matched.

Why is it done?

A kidney transplant operation is done when there is irreversible kidney failure and the patient is on dialysis। Chronic renal failure or CRF may be due to the following causes:

• Severe and uncontrollable high blood pressure
• Diabetes
• Polycystic kidney disease, when the kidney(s) are damaged due to presence of cysts
• Infection of the kidneys (pyelonephritis)
• Swelling of the filtering cells of the kidneys (glomerulonephritis).

When is the procedure NOT done?

A kidney transplant is not recommended in patients who have:

• Any disease of the heart, lung or liver
• Conditions like tuberculosis and osteomyelitis, which is an infection of the bones
• Recent history of cancer.

What happens during the procedure?

Before the operation, the patient’s blood and tissue typing is done। In all transplants there is a high risk of rejection by the recipient’s body, and therefore all patients need to be put on drugs like cyclosporin or steroids that depress the immune system।One kidney from a donor is removed under anaesthesia by making a cut in the abdomen। The kidney is removed with its blood vessels attached to it. The recipients abdomen is then opened and these blood vessels are then attached to the recipient’s blood vessels to ensure proper blood supply to the transplanted kidney. The tube that carries urine (ureter) is attached to the recipient’s bladder.

What happens after the procedure?

The donor’s urine for the first day after the surgery is drained by a catheter inside the urinary bladder। This is removed after the first day and the donor may be allowed to walk after 24 hours. No dietary modifications are needed and the patient can resume eating as soon as the anaesthesia wears off. The hospital stay is usually not more than 2-3 days.The recipient needs to stay in the hospital from 3-7 days depending on his condition. A bladder catheter is inserted which can be removed after a couple of days and the patient is generally able to eat and move about as soon as the anaesthesia wears off. The recipient is kept on medication to suppress any rejection reaction to the foreign kidney. Complete recovery usually takes a month.

What are the risks involved?

The risks in the surgical procedure are the same as they are in other kidney operations। There may be complications in the administration of anaesthesia। The patient may bleed during the surgery or may contract an infection. The biggest risk in a transplant operation is the risk of rejection of the foreign transplanted organ by the recipient’s body.

Are there any other complications?

Some of the complications of the procedure are:

• Infection happens in about 25% of the cases
• Major bleeding which may require blood transfusion
• Connections between the donor’s kidney and the recipient’s blood vessels that do not work properly
• Cancer which may develop in the cells of the kidney.

Long term care of the patient with a kidney transplant includes regular treatment with immunosuppressant drugs like prednisolone and cyclosporin। These may sometimes need to be given throughout life. However,kidney transplant is a better option than dialysis since it increases life expectancy. Donors can lead a normal life with one kidney and do not need to be on any special medication.

Bone marrow transplant

What is bone marrow transplant?

Bone marrow transplant is a procedure in which healthy bone marrow is transplanted into a patient whose bone marrow is not functioning properly। Problems in bone marrow are often caused by chemotherapy or radiation treatment for cancer। This procedure can also be done to correct hereditary blood diseases। The healthy bone marrow may be taken from the patient prior to chemotherapy or radiation treatment (autograft), or it may be taken from a donor (allograft)।

What is bone marrow?

Bone marrow is the soft, sponge-like material found inside bones। It contains immature cells called stem cells that produce blood cells. There are three types of blood cells: white blood cells, which fight infection; red blood cells, which carry oxygen to and from organs and tissues; and platelets, which enable the blood to clot.

Why is it done?

If a patient develops a disease of the blood cells, especially cancers such as leukaemia, he may require high doses of chemotherapy to destroy the cancer। However, this also destroys normal blood cells। Alternatively, hereditary or acquired disorders may cause abnormal blood cell production। In these cases, transplantation of healthy bone marrow may save a patient's life. Transplanted bone marrow will restore production of white blood cells, red blood cells, and platelets.

What is the procedure?

Bone marrow transplant patients are usually treated in specialised centres and the patient stays in a special nursing unit (a bone marrow transplant unit) to limit exposure to infections. The hospitalisation period is from 4 to 6 weeks, during which time the patient is isolated and under strict monitoring because of the increased risk of infection and/or bleeding.Donated bone marrow must match the patient's tissue type. It can be taken from the patient, a living relative (usually a brother or a sister), or from an unrelated donor. Donors are matched through special blood tests called HLA tissue typing. Bone marrow is taken from the donor in the operating room while one is unconscious and pain-free (under general anaesthesia). Some of the donor's bone marrow is removed from the top of the hip bone. The bone marrow is filtered, treated, and transplanted immediately or frozen and stored for later use. Then, transplant material is transfused into the patient through a vein and is naturally transported back into the bone cavities where it grows to replace the old bone marrow.Alternatively, blood cell precursors, called stem cells, can be induced to move from the bone marrow to the blood stream using special medications. These stem cells can then be taken from the bloodstream through a procedure called leukapheresis.The patient is prepared for transplantation by administering high doses of chemotherapy or radiation (conditioning). This serves two purposes. First, it destroys the patient's abnormal blood cells or cancer. Second, it inhibits the patient's immune response against the donor bone marrow (graft rejection).Following conditioning, the patient is ready for bone marrow infusion. After infusion, it takes 10 to 20 days for the bone marrow to establish itself. During this time, the patient requires support with blood cell transfusions.

What are the indications?
Bone marrow transplant may be recommended for:

Bone marrow deficiency disease caused by:

• abnormal red blood cell production, such as thalassaemia or sickle cell disease
• aggressive cancer treatments (chemotherapy, radiation therapy), especially for leukaemia or lymphoma
• lack of normal blood cell production (aplastic anaemia)
• Immune system disorders (immunodeficiency) such as: congenital neutropenia
• severe combined immunodeficiency syndrome

Bone marrow transplant is not recommended for:

• patients with heart, kidney, lungs, or liver disorders
• patients with other diseases that may limit survival

What are the risks?

The risks for any anaesthesia are:

• reactions to medications
• problems breathing

Chemotherapy given prior to bone marrow transplant (conditioning) can cause significant toxicity, such as mouth sores, diarrhoea, liver damage, or lung damage. While waiting for bone marrow to grow, the patient is at high risk for infection as also bleeding.The major problem with bone marrow transplants (when the marrow comes from a donor, not the patient) is graft-versus-host disease. The transplanted healthy bone marrow cells may attack the patient's cells as though they were foreign organisms. In this case, drugs to suppress the immune system must be taken, but this also decreases the body's ability to fight infections.Other significant problems with a bone marrow transplant are those of all major organ transplants - finding a donor and the cost. The donor is usually a sibling with compatible tissue. The more siblings the patient has, the more chances there are of finding a compatible donor.
What is the prognosis?
Bone marrow transplant prolongs the life of a patient who would otherwise die. Relatively normal activities can be resumed as soon as the patient feels well enough and after consulting with the doctor. The patient will require attentive follow-up care for 2 to 3 months after discharge from the hospital. It may take 6 months to a year for the immune system to fully recover from this procedure.

Know about Hysterectomy

Hysterectomy is the surgical removal of the uterus (or the womb). It may be done with or without the removal of ovaries (if both ovaries are removed, it is called hysterectomy with bilateral salpingo oophorectomy).It can also be total or subtotal hysterectomy. A total hysterectomy is one where the cervix is left behind. The type of hysterectomy done will depend on the reason for which the operation is being done and the profile of the patient.

Hysterectomy is done for several conditions like:

• Uterine fibroids – which are non-cancerous tumours of muscle cells in the wall of the uterus.
• Prolapse of uterus – where the uterus slides down into the vagina due to weakness of its supports.
• Heavy menstrual bleeding is the commonest reason for hysterectomy. Usually hysterectomy is done when the bleeding is very distressing to the patient and other treatments have failed. In some cases, the patient can become severely anaemic due to this bleeding.
• Pelvic Inflammatory Disease – characterised by chronic pain in the lower abdomen and vaginal discharge.
• Endometriosis – a condition where patches of the lining of the uterus (endometrium) break away and settled down into the abdomen. These patches can still spread to the monthly changes in the hormone level and hence can bleed and form sticky barriers between them and other organs, called adhesions.

There are three different approaches for removal of the uterus – abdominal, vaginal and laparoscopic. The choice of method will depend on the indicaton for hysterectomy, size of the uterus, profile of patient and expertise of the doctor in the particular route.

• Abdominal hysterectomy, incision is made in the abdomen like a caesarian operation.
• Vaginal hysterectomy is done through the vagina. The cut is made inside the body on top of the vagina, so no scar is visible and the uterus is taken out through the vagina.
• Laparoscopic hysterectomy, also known as keyhole surgery, it uses a laparoscope, which is inserted through a very small hole in the navel. Two or three small cuts are made in the abdomen to act as channels to introduce other instruments required for the surgery. Once the uterus is snipped free, it is removed through the vagina or the abdomen.

The patient is kept in the hospital from 2-5 days depending on post-operative condition. A thin tube is attached to the bladder to drain it so that she does not have to get up. She is encouraged to sit up and move around a little bit on the first day after the surgery. A liquid diet is maintained for the first couple of days which is gradually shifted to a soft and finally a normal diet. Some breathing exercises may be prescribed to the patient if she was put under general anaesthesia. Leg exercises are also prescribed to prevent a clot from forming in the legs.

Hysterectomy involves risks like any other surgery. The risks can be minor or major and can occur at any stage of the procedure. During surgery, risks include that of anaesthesia, bleeding and injury to the neighbouring organs.

Post operative risks may include nausea, vomiting, infection, trouble in breathing and other complications which include:

• Paralysis of bowel (ileus)
• Untimely breakage of stitches
• Blood clots in lungs, heart, legs and the brain
• Allergy to the medications
• Internal bleeding.

It is important to have help at home. The patient may need to rest and avoid heavy work for the first few weeks. Gentle exercise everyday is important. Resumption of normal activity depends on the type of operation and the post operative period. There may be some vaginal discharge for 3-4 weeks. It may be red or brown and is due to healing of the wound and dissolving of the stitches. If the bleeding is fresh, heavy or smelly, the doctor's opinion must be sought. Recovery time is usually 4 weeks for vaginal hysterectomy and 8 weeks for abdominal hysterectomy.

Job can be resumed depending on the type of job and the hours of work. One can return to work about 6 weeks after the operation after consultation with the doctor. Driving can be resumed 4 weeks after the surgery. Sexual intercourse can be started 6 weeks after the post operative check up. There is no need for any contraceptive as the uterus has been removed and the patient cannot have a baby.

HRT or hormone replacement therapy must be discussed with the doctor. If the ovaries have been removed, HRT may be begun soon after surgery, since removal of the ovaries brings about sudden menopause and hence menopausal symptoms like hot flushes, poor sleep, mood swings, frequency of urine and dryness of vagina may be experienced.

Read Amazing Human Facts…

·about Human Eyes
1.We should never put anything in or near our eyes, unless we have a reason to use eye drops. We would only do that if our doctor or parent told us to use them.
2.Blinking helps to wash tears over our eyeballs. That keeps them clean and moist. Also, if something is about to hit our eye, we will blink automatically.
3.Our body has some natural protection for our eyes. Our eyelashes help to keep dirt out of our eyes. Our eyebrows are made to keep sweat from running into our eyes.
4.Our eyes are very important to us, and we must protect them. We don't want dirt, sand, splinters or even fingers to get in our eyes. We don't want our eyes to get scratched or poked. That could damage our sight!

5.The study of the iris of the eye is called iridology.
6.The shark cornea has been used in eye surgery, since its cornea is similar to a human cornea.
7.The number one cause of blindness in adults in the United States is diabetes.
8.The eyeball of a human weighs approximately 28 grams.
9.The eye of a human can distinguish 500 shades of the Gray.
10.The cornea is the only living tissue in the human body that does not contain any blood vessels.
11.The conjunctiva is a membrane that covers the human eye.
12.Sailors once thought that wearing a gold earring would improve their eyesight.
13.Research has indicated that a tie that is on too tight cam increase the risk of glaucoma in men.
14.People generally read 25% slower from a computer screen compared to paper.
15.Men are able to read fine print better than women can.
16.In the United States, approximately 25,000 eye injuries occur that result in the person becoming totally blind.
17.All babies are colour blind when they are born.
18.A human eyeball weighs an ounce.
19.If the lens in our eye doesn't work quite right, we can get glasses to help us see. Glasses have lenses in them that work with our eye's own lens to help us see better.
20.Babies' eyes do not produce tears until the baby is approximately six to eight weeks old.
21.The reason why your nose gets runny when you are crying is because the tears from the eyes drain into the nose.
22.The most common injury caused by cosmetics is to the eye by a mascara wand.
23.Some people start to sneeze if they are exposed to sunlight or have a light shined into their eye.
24.The highest recorded speed of a sneeze is 165 km per hour.
25.It is impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
26.The space between your eyebrows is called the Glabellas.
27.Inside our eye, at the back, is a part called the "retina." On the retina are cells called "rods" and "cones." These rods and cones help us to see colours and light.
28.Just behind the pupil is a lens. It is round and flat. It is thicker toward the middle.
29.Over the front of our eye is a clear covering called the "conjunctiva."
30.The white part of our eye is called the "sclera." At the front, the sclera becomes clear and is called the "cornea."
31.Around the pupil is a coloured muscle called the "iris." Our eyes may be BLUE, BROWN, GREEN, GRAY OR BLACK, because that is the colour of the iris.
32.Our eyes have many parts. The black part on the front of our eye is called the "pupil." It is really a little hole that opens into the back part of our eyes.
Your eye blinks over 10,000,000 times a year!

·about Human Brain
1.Women are twice as likely to be diagnosed with depression than men in the United States.
2.The human brain has about 100,000,000,000 (100 billion) neurons.
3.From all the oxygen that a human breathes, twenty percent goes to the brain.
4.People who ride on roller coasters have a higher chance of having a blood clot in the brain.
5.Once a human reaches the age of 35, he/she will start losing approximately 7,000 brain cells a day. The cells will never be replaced.
6.It is not possible to tickle yourself. The cerebellum, a part of the brain, warns the rest of the brain that you are about to tickle yourself. Since your brain knows this, it ignores the resulting sensation.

7.A women from Berlin Germany has had 3,110 gallstones taken out of her gall bladder.
8.In America, the most common mental illness is Anxiety Disorders.
9.Your brain is 80% water.
10.Your brain is move active and thinks more at night than during the day.

.about Human Heart
1.Women hearts beat faster than men.
2.Three years after a person quits smoking, there chance of having a heart attack is the same as someone who has never smoked before.
3.The human heart weighs less than a pound.
4.The human heart can create enough pressure that it could squirt blood at a distance of thirty feet.
5.The first open heart surgery was performed by Dr. Daniel Hall Williams in 1893.
6.Scientists have discovered that the longer the ring finger is in boys the less chance they have of having a heart attack.7.The right lung of a human is larger than the left one. This is because of the space and placement of the heart.
8.The human heart beast roughly 35 million times a year.
9.Olive oil can help in lowering cholesterol levels and decreasing the risk of heart complications.
10.In a lifetime, the heart pumps about one million barrels of blood.
11.In 1967, the first successful heart transplant was performed in Cape Town, South Africa.
12.People that suffer from gum disease are twice as likely to have a stroke or heart attack.
13.Most heart attacks occur between the hours of 8 and 9 AM.
14.The human heart beast roughly 35 million times a year.
15.At one time it was thought that the heart controlled a person's emotions.
16.Every day 2,700 people die of heart disease.
17.During a typical human life span, the human heart will beat approximately 2.5 billion times.
18.In one day your heart beats 100,000 times.
19.For humans the normal pulse is 70 heartbeats per minute.

.about Human Blood
1.Two million red blood cells die every second.
2.There are approximately 100,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body.
3.Seven percent of a humans body weight is made up of blood.
4.In the early nineteenth century some advertisements claimed that riding the carousel was good for the circulation of blood.
5.Each day 400 gallons of recycled blood are pumped through the kidneys.
6.By donating just one pint of blood, four lives can be saved.
7.Blood is such a good stain that Native Americans used it for paint.8.The kidneys filter over 400 gallons of blood each day.
9.The average life span of a single red blood cell is 120 days.
10.Blood accounts for about 8% of a human's body weight.
11.A woman has approximately 4.5 liters of blood in her body, while men have 5.6 liters.
12.Your blood takes a very long trip through your body. If you could stretch out all of a human's blood vessels, they would be about 60,000 miles long. That's enough to go around the world twice.
13.Half your body’s red blood cells are replaced every seven days.
14.If all the blood vessels in your body were laid end to end, they would reach about 60,000 miles.

.about Diseases
1.People that use mobile phones are 2.5 time more likely to develop cancer in areas of the brain that are adjacent to the ear they use to talk on the mobile phone.
2.Over 90% of diseases are caused or complicated by stress.
3.Over 436,000 U.S. Troops were exposed to depleted uranium during the first Gulf war.
4.On average, 90% of the people that have the disease Lupus are female.
5.Many cancer patients that are treated with chemotherapy lose their hair. For some when the hair grows back, it can grow back a different colour, or be curly or straight. 6.Diabetes is the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for about 180,000 deaths per year.
7.Chances of a women getting breast cancer are increased by excessive use of alcohol.
8.A popular superstition is that if you put a piece of bread in a baby's crib, it will keep away diseases.
9.A person that is struck by lightning has a greater chance of developing motor neurons disease.
10.Every year in the U.S., there are 178,000 new cases of lung cancer.
11.Every three minutes a woman is diagnosed with breast cancer.
12.Asthma affects one in fifteen children under the age of eighteen.
13.Every eleven minutes in the U.S., a woman dies of breast cancer.
14.Due to eating habits in the USA, one in three children born in the year 2000 have a chance of getting type II diabetes.
15.The oldest known disease in the world is leprosy.
16.The number one cause of rabies in the United States are bats.
17.Coughing can cause air to move through your windpipe faster than the speed of sound — over a thousand feet per second!
18.A headache and inflammatory pain can be reduced by eating 20 tart cherries.
19.The incident of immune system diseases has increased over 200% in the last five years.
20.The flu pandemic of 1918 killed over 20 million people.
21.Each year in America there are about 300,000 deaths that can be attributed to obesity.
22.Every three days a human stomach gets a new lining.
23.The first owner of the Marlboro Company, Wayne McLaren, died of lung cancer.
24.Soldiers disease is a term for morphine addiction. The Civil War produced over 400,000 morphine addicts.
25.Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a disease caused by ticks.
26.A person afflicted with hexadectylism has six fingers or six toes on one or both hands and feet.
27.A study indicates that smokers are likely to die on average six and a half years earlier than non-smokers.
28.A person who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day will on average lose two teeth every ten years.
29.Lady Peseshet is known to be the world's first known female physician. She practiced during the time of the pyramids, which was the fourth dynasty. The DNA of humans is closer to a rat than a cat.
30.Teenage suicide is the second cause of death in the state of Wisconsin.
31.Teenage cosmetic surgeries nearly doubled in the USA between 1996 and 1998.
32.Studies indicate that weightlifters working out in blue gyms can handle heavier weights.
33.Studies indicate that listening to music is good for digestion.
34.Studies indicate that epileptic patients that listen to Mozart's Piano Sonata can dramatically decrease their chance of a seizure.
35.Lack of sleep can affect your immune system and reduce your ability to fight infections.
36.It takes about three hours for food to be broken down in the human stomach.
37.Over 40 million Americans have chronic bad breath.
38.Carbon monoxide can kill a person in less than 15 minutes.
39.Fourteen people die each day from asthma in the United States.
40.Every day the human stomach produces about 2 liters of hydrochloric acid.
41.Nearly half of all Americans suffer from symptoms of burnout. In humans, the epidermal layer of skin, which consists of many layers of skin regenerates every 27 days.
42.Native Americans used to use pumpkin seeds for medicine.
43.In ancient Egypt, doctors used jolts from the electric catfish to reduce the pain of arthritis.
44.The lining of the a person's stomach is replaced every 36 hours.
45.The purpose of tonsils is to destroy foreign substances that are swallowed or breathed in.
46.In the United States, poisoning is the fourth leading cause of death among children.
47.The risk of cardiovascular disease is twice as high in women that snore regularly compared to women who do not snore.
48.The stomach of an adult can hold 1.5 liters of material.
49.The stomach can break down goat's milk faster than the milk of a cow.
50.The smoke that is produced by a fire kills more people than a burn does because of carbon monoxide and other dangerous gases.
51.It has been medically been proven that laughter is an effective pain killer.
52.Influenza caused over twenty-one million deaths in 1918.
53.In a year, there are 60,000 trampoline injuries that occur in the U.S.
54.Even if you eat food standing on your head, the food will still end up in your stomach.
55.A person infected with the SARS virus, has a 95-98% chance of recovery.
56.3000 children die every day in Africa because of malaria.

.about Pregnancy
1.The world's first test tube twins are Stephen and Amanda Mays born June 5, 1981.
2.Some people drink the urine of pregnant women to build up their immune system.
3.The first known contraceptive was crocodile dung, used by Egyptians in 2000 B.C.
4.Every day, over 1,300 babies are born prematurely in the USA.
5.During pregnancy, the average woman's uterus expands up to five hundred times its normal size. 6.Changing a cat's litter box can be dangerous to pregnant women, as cat feces sometimes carry a parasite that can cause harm to the developing baby.
7.A pregnant woman's dental health can affect her unborn child.
8.May babies are on average 200 grams heavier than babies born in other months.
9.When a woman is pregnant, her senses are all heightened.
10.Studies show that couples that smoke during the time of conception have a higher chance of having a girl compared to couples that do not smoke.

.about Human Sex
1.There are approximately 100 million acts of sexual intercourse each day.
2.An adult esophagus can range from 10 to 14 inches in length and is one inch in diameter.
3.Men sweat more than women. This is because women can better regulate the amount of water they lose.
4.The average amount of time spent kissing for a person in a lifetime is 20,160 minutes. 5.The average adult has approximately six pounds of skin.
6.Infants spend more time dreaming than adults do.
7.In one day, adult lungs move about 10,000 liters of air.
8.The condom made originally of linen was invented in the early 1500's. Casanova, the womanizer, used linen condoms.
9.Sex burns about 70-120 calories for a 130 pound woman, and 77 to 155 calories for a 170 pound man every hour.
10.There are approximately 45 billion fat cells in an average adult.
11.Kissing can aid in reducing tooth decay. This is because the extra saliva helps in keeping the mouth clean.
12.During the female orgasm, endorphines are released, which are powerful painkillers. So headaches are in fact a bad excuse not to have sex.
13.During World War II, condoms were used to cover rifle barrels from being damaged by salt water as the soldiers swam to shore.
14.According to psychologists, the shoe and the foot are the most common sources of sexual fetishism in Western society.
15.A kiss for one minute can burn 26 calories.

.about Human Body
1.The smile is the most frequently used facial expression. A smile can use anywhere from a pair of 5 to 53 facial muscles.
2.The slowest growing finger nail is on the thumb nail and the fastest growing is the finger nail on the middle finger.
3.The sensitivity of a woman's middle finger is reduced during menstruation.
4.The same amount of calories are burned by doing 6 sessions that are 5 minutes each of an activity and doing 1 session of that activity for 30 minutes.
5.The pectin that is found in apples aids in lowering cholesterol levels.
6.The most frequent season for most suicides to occur is in the spring. The winter months have the lowest number of suicides. 7.The majority of American models are skinnier than 98% of American women.
8.The longest hiccups on record was by an American pig farmer whose hiccups persisted from 1922 to 1987.
9.The longer white infants from low-income families are breast-fed, the less likely they will be overweight as young children, researchers said on Monday.
10.The length of a human esophagus is 25 centimeters.
11.The human liver performs over 500 functions.
12.The feet have approximately 250,000 sweat glands.
13.The eight most popular foods to cause food allergies are: milk, eggs, wheat, peanuts, soy, tree nuts, fish, and shellfish.
14.The early occurrence of a fetus yawning is at eleven weeks after conception.
15.The average ear grows 0.01 inches in length every year.
16.The Gastric Flu can cause projectile vomiting.
17.The Dutch people are known to be the tallest people in Europe.
18.Studies have shown that the scent of Rosemary can help in better mental performance and make individuals feel more alert.
19.Some brands of toothpaste contain glycerin or glycerol, which is also an ingredient in antifreeze.
20.Soaking beans for twelve hours in water before they are cooked can reduce flatulence caused by beans.
21.Scientists say that babies that are breastfed are more likely to be slimmer as adults than those that are not breastfed.
22.Scientists have determined that having guilty feelings may actually damage your immune system.
23.Research has indicated that approximately eleven minutes are cut off the life of an average male smoker from each cigarette smoked.
24.People have the tendency to chew the food on the side that they most often use their hand.
25.Over 600,000 people died as a result of the Spanish influenza epidemic.
26.Only one out of every three people wash their hands when leaving a public bathroom.
27.One ragweed plant can release as many as a million grains of pollen in one day.
28.One out of 20 people have an extra rib.
29.One average, men spend 60 hours a year shaving.
30.On average, falling asleep while driving results in 550 accidents per day in the United States.
31.On average, a person has two million sweat glands.
32.On average, Americans spend 33% of their life sleeping.
33.On average a person passes gas 14 times a day.
34.On average 1,668 gallons of water are used by each person in the United States daily.
35.Nerve impulses for muscle position travel at a speed of up to 390 feet per second.
36.Nerve cells can travel as fast as 120 meters per second.
37.Mummy powder was once thought to be a cure for all remedies. English men used to carry the powder with them in a tiny bag wherever they went.
38.Men in their early twenties shave an average of four times a week.
39.Medical research has found substances in mistletoe that can slow down tumor growth.
40.Medical reports show that about 18% of the population are prone to sleepwalking.
41.Manicuring the nails has been done by people for more than 4,000 years.
42.Left-handed people are better at sports that require good spatial judgment and fast reaction, compared to right-handed individuals.
43.Ironically, when doctors in Los Angeles, California went on strike in 1976, the daily number of deaths in the city dropped 18%.
44.In the United States, 8.5 million cosmetic surgical and non-surgical procedures were done in the year 2001.
45.People with darker skin will not wrinkle as fast as people with lighter skin.
46.People with allergies can lower allergy reactions by laughing.
47.People who meet their calcium need reduce their risk of developing kidney stones.
48.People that smoke have 10 times as many wrinkles as a person that does not smoke.
49.People still cut the cheese shortly after death.
50.People over the age of fifty will start to lose their dislike for foods that taste bitter.
51.People of Ancient China believed that swinging your arms could cure a headache.
52.The average weight of a newborn baby is 7 lbs. 6 oz. For a triplet baby it is 3 lbs. 12 oz.
53.The average person spends two weeks of their life kissing.
54.The average person falls asleep in about 12 to 14 minutes.
55.There are approximately one hundred million people in the United States that have a chronic illness.
56.There are approximately 60 muscles in the face.
57.There are 50% more males that are left handed compared to females.
58.There are 400 species of bacteria in the human colon.
59.There are 10 million bacteria at the place where you rest your hands at a desk.
60.In a lifetime, an average human produces 10,000 gallons of saliva.
61.In a lifetime, an average driver will release approximately 912 pints of wind inside a car.
62.In Canada, men are three times more likely than women to have seen a doctor in the last year.
63.In 1832, in Paisley, Scotland the first municipal water filtration works was opened.
64.Humans breathe in and out approximately one litre of air in ten seconds.
65.Girls have more taste bud than boys.
66.From the age of thirty, humans gradually begin to shrink in size.
67.Flu shots only work about 70% of the time.
68.Gases that build up in your large intestine cause flatulence. It usually takes about 30 to 45 minutes for these gases to pass through your system.
69.Fat is important for the development of children and normal growth.
70.Every day, the average person swallows about a quart of snot.
71.Eighty percent of 10 year old girls in the USA go on a diet.
72.Air is passed through the nose at a speed of 100 miles per hour when a person sneezes.
73.About twenty-five percent of the population sneeze when they are exposed to light.
74.A yawn usually lasts for approximately six seconds.
75.Children who are breast fed tend to have an IQ seven points higher than children who are not.
76.Children grow faster in the springtime than any other season during the year.
77.Eating chocolate three times a month helps people live longer as opposed to people who overeat chocolate or do not eat chocolate at all.
78.Constipation is caused when too much water is absorbed in the large intestine and poops become dry.
79.A ear trumpet was used before the hearing aid was invented by people who had difficulty hearing.
80.The average human dream lasts only 2 to 3 seconds.
81.The average person has at least seven dreams a night.
82.Bile produced by the liver is responsible for making your feces a brownish, green colour.
83.It takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.
84.By the time you are 70 you will have easily drunk over 12,000 gallons of water.
85.A man named Charles Osborne had the hiccups for approximately sixty-nine years.
86.The average person walks the equivalent of twice around the world in a lifetime.
87.The average person laughs about 15 times a day.
88.The vocabulary of the average person consists of 5,000 to 6,000 words.
89.About 10% of the world's population is left-handed.
90.A human's small intestine is 6 meters long.
91.There are as many hairs per square inch on your body as a chimpanzee. You don't see all of them because most are too fine and light to be noticed.
92.Every hour one billion cells in the body must be replaced.
93.Dead cells in the body ultimately go to the kidneys for excretion.
94.By walking an extra 20 minutes every day, an average person will burn off seven pounds of body fat in an year.
95.The human body is 75% water.
96.In one day, a human sheds 10 billion skin flakes. This amounts to approximately two kilograms in a year.
97.Every square inch of the human body has about 19,000,000 skin cells.
98.Approximately 25% of all scald burns to children are from hot tap water and is associated with more deaths than with any other liquid.
99.Forty-one percent of women apply body and hand moisturizer at least three times a day.
100.Every hour one billion cells in the body must be replaced.
101.The world record for the number of body piercing on one individual is 702, which is held by Canadian Brent Moffat.
102.The small intestine in the human body is about 2 inches around, and 22 feet long.
103.The human body makes anywhere from 1 to 3 pints of saliva every 24 hours.
104.The human body has approximately 37,000 miles of capillaries.
105.The aorta, which is largest artery located in the body, is about the diameter of a garden hose.
106.The adult human body requires about 88 pounds of oxygen daily.
107.It is very common for babies in New Zealand to sleep on sheepskins. This is to help them gain weight faster, and retain their body heat.
108.An average women has 17 square feet of skin. When a women is in her ninth month of pregnancy she has 18.5 square feet of skin.
109.The width of your armspan stretched out is the length of your whole body.
110.41% of women apply body or hand moisturizer a minimum three times a day.

Global TB rate stabilizes, XDR-TB remains high – WHO

The global rate of the world's deadliest curable infectious disease, tuberculosis has dropped, public health officials reported Thursday, offering a blink of hope for the first time since the World health Organization declared tuberculosis’ spread a public health emergency in 1993.

The latest statistics on tuberculosis, issued in a new Global Tuberculosis Control report Thursday from the World Health Organization, shows 136 TB cases per 100,000 people worldwide in 2005, the most recent figures available. That compares with 136.5 cases in year 2006, meaning the worldwide rate of tuberculosis has stabilized at about 136 cases per 100,000 people in the last two years. "This is a breakthrough," said Dr. Marcos Espinal of WHO's Stop TB Partnership. "It's the first time we've had good news about the epidemic since 1993." There were an estimated 8.7 million cases of the disease in 2005, killing an estimated 1.6 million people, 195,000 of them people living with HIV, WHO Director General Dr Margaret Chan said while issuing the report yesterday. "We need to tackle this problem as part of the larger challenge of increasing access to primary health care services", she stressed.

Although the announcement has offered a glimmer of hope for the organizations fighting against tuberculosis, but at the same time there is a bad news that the extensively drug resistant strain of tuberculosis, XDR-TB, rate has risen. The threat is emerging from drug-resistant versions of TB and the potential for its spread with the help of the AIDS epidemic. The AIDS virus weakens the immune system making people more susceptible to TB. The surge in the XDR-TB presents significant challenges to efforts to bring the global epidemic of ordinary TB under control, the World Health Organization (WHO) said yesterday. TB rates in the United States hit an all-time low in 2006, but health officials worry that progress to eliminate TB continued to slow. “Tuberculosis continues to have a significant and unacceptable impact on minorities and immigrant communities in the United States,” said Dr. Kevin Fenton, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for HIV, STD and TB Prevention. The national TB case rate in 2006 was 4.6 TB cases per 100,000 Americans, the lowest since reporting began in 1953, the CDC reported yesterday. A total of 13,767 TB cases were reported last year in US, down from 14,085 cases in 2005.

While the Americas, South-East Asia and the Western pacific were on track to meet the target of the Global Plan to Stop TB, African, eastern Mediterranean and European regions were not, WHO said. According to the WHO's Western Pacific office in Manila, drug-resistant TB is now widespread in the Western Pacific region, with high levels documented in China, Mongolia and the Philippines. The deadly XDR-TB that swept through South Africa has engulfed at least 74 people in the last several months. Already hit by the HIV virus, South Africa was struck by the drug-resistant tuberculosis last year, with the TB rate of 343 cases per 100,000, more than twice the global rate.

Since then the health officials have urged for stronger measures to combat the strains, including better surveillance, diagnostics and drugs, in order to prevent it from transforming into a global pandemic. Tuberculosis or TB is an airborne bacillus caused by a bacterium called Mycobacterium tuberculosis that spreads through coughing or sneezing. It mainly affects the lung (80%) but can also affect most of other parts of the body except hair and nails. The other body parts which can come in grip of the disease are lymph nodes, gastro intestinal tract, genito-urinary tract, coverings of the brain (called meninges), linings of the lungs(pleura), heart(pericardium), brain, bones, joints, skin, eyes and other organs. Multidrug resistant TB (MDR TB) is a form of TB that is resistant to at least two first line therapies – isoniazid and rifampin, while extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR TB) develops from MDR-TB, and is resistant to at least isoniazid and rifampin among the first-line anti-TB drugs and among second-line drugs.

Is alcohol more dangerous than drugs?

Alcohol is ranked almost as harmful as heroin in a controversial new drug classification system proposed by a team of British scientists.

Ecstasy, rated a Class A drug in Britain, is placed near the bottom of the league table which lists "harm scores" for different substances. LSD, another class A drug, is also considered relatively safe despite its powerful hallucinogenic properties. Cannabis, recently downgraded by the British government to class C, occupies a middle position. It is rated more dangerous than Ecstasy, LSD and the dance floor drug GHB - but less harmful than tobacco. The table, published in The Lancet medical journal, was drawn up by a team of scientists led by Professor David Nutt, from the University of Bristol, and Prof Colin Blakemore, chief executive of the Medical Research Council.

It is intended to be a model for policymakers that is more scientifically based than the current Misuse of Drugs Act system that attaches "a, b, and c" labels to illicit drugs. The results placed heroin at the head of the table with an overall "harm score" of 2.7, followed by cocaine which scored 2.3. But more controversially, alcohol is ranked as the fifth most dangerous drug, scoring just under 2 on the table. The scientists identified three main factors that together determined the harmfulness of a controlled substance. These were: the physical harm to the individual user caused by the drug, the tendency of the drug to induce dependence, and the effect of the drug's use on families, communities and society.

Lab mice's gene upgrade gives them a full-color world

Providing a kaleidoscopic upgrade to creatures that are largely color-blind, scientists have endowed mice with a human gene that allows the rodents to see the world in full Technicolor splendor.

The advance, which relied on imaginative tests to confirm that the mice can perceive all the hues that people see, helps resolve a long-standing debate about how color vision arose in human ancestors tens of millions of years ago. That seminal event brought a host of practical advantages, such as the ability to spot ripe fruit, and unveiled a host of new aesthetic pleasures - autumn foliage, magenta sunsets and the blush of a potential mate, among them.

The work also points to the possibility of curing some of the millions of color-blind Americans - and even enhancing the vision of healthy people, allowing them to experience a richer palette than is possible with standard-issue eyes. "It opens up huge doors to understanding how color vision evolved and where it can go," said Brian Verrelli, an evolutionary geneticist who studies color vision at Arizona State University and was not involved in the work, published Friday in the journal Science.

Mice, like most mammals, have limited color perception, equivalent to that of people with red-green color blindness. Their eyes have just two kinds of color detectors, or "cone" cells, each sensitive to a different part of the spectrum. Unable to differentiate between reds and greens, they see the world as a blend of blues and yellows, with gray overlays added by black- and white-registering "rod" cells. By contrast, most people - along with Old World primates and South and Central American female monkeys - have three kinds of cones. That gives birth to the vibrant world of reds and a vast repertoire of related colors.

Scientists studying the evolution of color vision had already identified the DNA mutation that gave rise to the third kind of cone cell. But they have argued over whether that mutation immediately conferred a new breadth of color perception or whether generations had to pass until changes in the brain's neural circuitry could take advantage of the novel inputs. "This experiment says it had an advantage immediately," said Jeremy Nathans, of the Johns Hopkins Medical School in Baltimore, who led the new study with Gerald Jacobs of the University of California at Santa Barbara. "And if you think about it, that's a very good way to build a brain, so that even a small evolutionary tweak can immediately give you an advantage."

Nathans, Jacobs and their colleagues snipped the red-detecting gene from human retinal cells and inserted it into mouse embryos. The resulting mice had the usual two kinds of mouse cone cells and also the human one - everything required for "trichromatic" vision. Tests showed that all the light-detecting cells were working. But were the mice really seeing red? To find out, the team placed each engineered mouse in a box containing three small illuminated screens. Working at first with changing combinations of black or white screens, they trained the mice to touch the screen that was different. Those giving correct answers were rewarded with a drop of soy milk. Then the team tested the rodents' ability to discriminate among various colors, including thousands of trials focusing on the crucial green-red distinction. To make sure the animals were not simply noting a difference in brightness, they randomly made the red or green screens brighter.

Of five mice tested, three proved they could make use of their new cones, choosing correctly about 80 percent of the time. Only 33 percent would be expected by chance. Why two of the mice failed remains unclear. "Maybe they were just too dumb. Maybe they weren't motivated. One just doesn't know why, when an animal fails," Nathans said. That three could immediately use the new information, however, proves that the brain is flexible enough to detail some of its neurons to handling new inputs, he said. It is impossible to know how the enhanced mice are experiencing their spectrally enhanced world, Jacobs said - whether the ordinary seems psychedelic, and whether their quality of life is better. "I don't know what you experience when you see colors," Jacobs said, "and I know even less about what the mouse is experiencing." Indeed, some said, the fact that mice never acquired - or at least never retained - trichromatic vision suggests it may not be of much evolutionary value to them, perhaps because they are nocturnal.

By contrast, biologists theorize that the sudden ability to see red was a windfall for primates. Pink skin may signal good health in a prospective mate, a red face can warn of a rival's anger, and a lack of red can indicate fear - a useful cue in a touch-and-go situation. Jay Neitz, a vision scientist at the Medical College of Wisconsin in Milwaukee, said the work confirms his unpublished research in which he has cured red-green color blindness in monkeys by injecting into their eyes the missing color-receptor gene. If further studies prove the approach is safe, he said, it could be used in people to correct color blindness and perhaps to add gene variants that would allow a finer parsing of the spectrum. "You'd think that the color world of a tetrachromat would be very rich compared to ours," Neitz said. In fact, researchers have identified some people who already seem to have four different color receptors. Some animals have even more, while some mammals that eventually took to the oceans have lost one of their three, apparently having found them unnecessary in their uniformly bluish environs.

Pocket-Size Owl Appears in Peru

It has been more than 30 years since conservationists in Peru first caught a long-whiskered owlet in their nighttime bird nets, introducing to the birding world one of the smallest, and cutest, owls on the planet. Since then, just a handful of the wide-eyed, wispy-browed mini-owls have been trapped by researchers working in that country's mountainous frontier, and none had been seen flying in the wild -- until now. In February, the intensely private and presumably threatened bird got over its shyness and made multiple appearances before birders working to preserve its remote habitat, which is among the richest areas of avian biodiversity in the world. Birders hope that the owlet's recent appearances will bolster efforts to expand a recently created 4,000-acre private sanctuary there, which is home to hundreds of rare and endangered bird species.Researchers with the Asociaci?n Ecosistemas Andinos and the American Bird Conservancy, who are leading conservation efforts there, believe there are fewer than 1,000 of the owls, and perhaps as few as 250. With the help of foundation grants, the organizations have been buying tracts of land in a wooded region that abuts a much larger government preserve. Last month, rangers spotted the owlet three times during daylight hours and recorded its calls. They also took the first pictures of the bird in the wild.

Ladybug Taint: Not Fine in Wine

Ladybugs are well known to gardeners as a great natural tool to control aphids and other pests. But a new study has shown that the spotted insects have a less-appealing side: They produce a foul-smelling liquid that is increasingly being found in wines. There's even a name for it -- "ladybug taint."

The smell, which connotes green bell peppers or roasted peanuts, is produced by ladybugs as a defense mechanism. The chemicals they release, in a class of compounds called methoxypyrazines, are found in other animals and plants, but Jacek Koziel of Iowa State University said ladybugs are loaded with them. "Even tiny amounts can be detected by the human nose," he said. His team used a gas chromatograph and a panel of volunteer "sniffers" to identify the odors from about 300 ladybugs of the species Harmonia axyridis. Batches of five bugs were sealed in test tubes and the odors were analyzed, revealing 28 distinct smells. Four chemicals were found to be associated with the ladybug odor.This type of ladybug has been spreading rapidly across the Midwest because some tasty new prey -- the invasive soybean aphid -- has also become widespread. Winemakers report greater concentrations of ladybugs in their vineyards and on harvested grapes. Apparently the bugs are being mixed into the fermenting grape juice by accident. Koziel's study was presented at last week's national meeting of the American Chemical Society

Bird flu alert in North-East India

The Tripura government has sounded an alert against bird flu in the wake of reports of the disease in neighbouring Bangladesh, officials said today. The Family Welfare Preventive Medicine and Animal Resource Development departments have jointly taken all possible steps to tackle avian flu, ARD director Narayan Chandra Das said. The Union Health and Family Welfare Ministry has asked the state to take precautionary measures as cases of avian flu were reported from across the border, he said. A total of 266 trained ARD assistants have been asked to be vigilant in border areas as Tripura imports a huge quantity of chicks and eggs from Bangladesh, officials said. Avian influenza has slashed sales of poultry and poultry products by 20 percent in Bangladesh, the local daily The Financial Express reported Monday. "The disease has cost the poultry industry a 20 percent drop in sales of its products during the last three days," Moshiur Rahman, president of the Bangladesh Poultry Association, was quoted as saying. "We fear the sales to drop further as consumption of chickens and eggs are dropping by the day," Rahman said. Sales of chickens and eggs have fallen substantially in the local markets, especially in and around Savar, 25 km west of the capital Dhaka, where four out of the six affected poultry farms are located within three kilometers of each other. Meanwhile, the livestock department has been ordered to buy and stamp-out (bury scientifically) all homegrown chickens, ducks and birds located within 1 km of the six affected poultry farms.The government has sanctioned fund to buy the chickens from all the houses that rear chickens, ducks and birds. The purchased poultry products are buried for safety. So far, 32,000 chickens from five private farms have been destroyed. The government has also restricted the movement of all poultry products within 10 km of the affected farms. The government announced the detection of the Avian Influenza on March 22.