Sunday, December 30, 2012

HIV kills off girl's leukemia


US doctors say they have saved a seven-year-old girl who was close to dying from leukemia by pioneering the use of an unlikely ally: a modified form of HIV.
After fighting Emily Whitehead's disease with chemotherapy for almost two years and watching the young girl have two relapses, doctors at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia said she "faced grim prospects". In February, they agreed to take her on in an experimental program that fought fire with fire.
Helped by a genetically altered HIV - stripped of the devastating properties that cause AIDS - doctors turned the girl's immune cells into a superior force able to rout the "aggressive" leukemia.
Emily was the first child and one of only a handful of people to be given what's officially known as CTL019 therapy.
The hospital stressed this could not yet be called "a magic bullet".
 
But in her case, at least, the success was dramatic.
First, millions of the girl's natural immune system cells were removed. Then the modified HIV was used to carry in a new gene that would boost the immune cells and help them spot, then attack, cancer cells that had previously been able to sneak in "under the radar".
Finally, the rebooted immune cells were sent back in to do their work. "The researchers have created a guided missile that locks in on and kills B cells, thereby attacking B-cell leukemia," the hospital said.

Monday, December 10, 2012

How to increase your testosterone level

14 ways to naturally Increase your testosterone

1. Get more Zinc
Zinc is very important for the production of natural testosterone
because Zinc prevents testosterone from being converted into estrogen (the female hormone) by making the enzyme aromatase not work (look at #3 below) plus…

Zinc itself turns estrogen into testosterone and Zinc helps produce healthier sperm and higher sperm counts so actually… Low levels of zinc can cause low testosterone levels.
Foods high in Zinc include oysters (a natural aphrodisiac), liver, seafood, poultry, nuts & seeds or you can supplement with at least 50-to-100mg of Zinc daily
2. Eat more healthy fats
Research has shown that men who ate diets rich in healthy fats like monounsaturated fats & Omega-3 fats had the highest testosterone levels so…
You can naturally raise your testosterone levels by adding more healthy fats by eating more nuts & seeds, fatty fish like salmon & tuna, avocados, olives, vegetable oils, and natural peanut butter and…
Eating a very low-fat diet can actually lead to lowered testosterone levels because your body needs healthy fats in order to produce testosterone but…
This doesn't mean you need to eat a REAL HIGH fat diet - Just make sure at least 20-to-30% of your total daily calories comes from healthy fats.
3. Lose body fat
The more overweight you are or the higher your body fat percentage is = The higher your estrogen levels will be because body fat contains an enzyme called aromatase that converts your 'manly' testosterone into 'womanly' estrogen making your testosterone levels drop so…
Look at these fat burning workouts to lower body fat, reduce estrogen and increase testosterone and…
Try not to Diet or cut too many calories when trying to lose body fat because you don't want your body going into starvation or survival mode which will cause your body to stop making testosterone so whenever you're trying to lose fat & increase testosterone at the same time…
Make sure you focus on losing 1-to-3 pounds of fat a week mainly thru fat loss workouts and a basic diet plan
4. Get rid of excess estrogen
To get rid of excess estrogen that makes you fatter & weaker so your body can naturally produce more testosterone…
5. Try to avoid Xenoestrogens
Xenoestrogens are man-made estrogens that are found in things like pesticides, artificial growth hormones & steroids, air fresheners and plastic containers and these xenoestrogens will increase your levels of the female hormone estrogen while lowering testosterone so…
  • Eat more organic fruits & vegetables that are free of pesticides and if you do buy your fruits & vegetables at a regular grocery store… Make sure you wash them to lower your chances of consuming any xenoestrogens and…
  • Eat more naturally raised meats instead of eating beef, chicken, pork and even milk that was raised using artificial growth hormones and steroids and…
  • Use glass products to store food & water instead of plastic since plastic products tend to produce xenoestrogens that'll get into your water & food especially when heated and… Even some canned foods contain plastic coatings that contain xenoestrogens and…
  • Don't use any perfumes, colognes, or air fresheners that have parabens listed as one of the ingredients. Parabens are xenoestrogens.
Please note: It'll be fairly hard for you to 100% completely avoid all xenoestrogens but if you follow the other tips on this page (especially tips #3 & #4) - You'll still be able to naturally increase your testosterone while getting rid of excess estrogen without having to worry so much about trying to avoid xenoestrogens and…

Also note: Since most xenoestrogens accumulate in your body fat - your best defense against xenoestrogens is to lose body fat (look at #3 again)
6. Get at least 6-to-8 hours of Sleep every night
A university of Chicago study showed that men who got little sleep had way lower testosterone levels than men who got 6-to-8 hours of sleep and… According to a University of North Carolina study… Your testosterone levels can drop down by as much as 40 PERCENT when you don't get enough sleep and generally…
Your testosterone levels are 30% higher in the morning than in the evening and this is why you may be more horny in the mornings and as a matter of fact…
A loss of morning erections or loss of sexual desire in the morning could be a sign that your testosterone is declining so you need to get 6-to-8 hours of sleep every night because while you're sleeping…
Your body produces the most testosterone and the better you sleep the more testosterone your body will produce while you sleep so if you're having trouble getting 6-to-8 hours of good quality 'testosterone producing' sleep every night - Look at 33 Secrets to a Good Night's Sleep
7. Stress Less
When you get stressed out - your body releases a "stress" hormone called cortisol that shuts down testosterone production…
Research led by Population Council endocrinologist Matthew Hardy found that stress hormones like cortisol overpower the enzymes responsible for ensuring that cells in the testes produce testosterone

Cortisol also makes you gain belly fat and you already know from #3 above that the fatter you are = you'll have more estrogen and less testosterone so…
You need to stop worrying about the little things, avoid overtraining, control your temper and look at these 100 ways to lower stress and Being more positive can reduce your stress levels and increase Testosterone…
A recent study found that fans of a losing team had 50 percent lower levels of testosterone after their team lost and fans had up to 100% higher levels of testosterone after their team won.
Taking a natural supplement like Ashwagandha can also help reduce cortisol.
8. Take 1000-to-1500mg of Vitamin C per day
Now if you have a hard time avoiding stress - you want to start taking 1000-to-1500mg of Vitamin C per day because…
  • Vitamin C has been shown to lower cortisol levels allowing your body to make more Testosterone and like Zinc…
  • Vitamin C reduces the armostase enzyme that converts your Testosterone into Estrogen.
9. Workout like a man
You can force your body to produce a lot of testosterone when you…
  • Do Compound exercises that train several large muscle groups like Power Cleans, Squats, Bench presses, Deadlifts, Chin-ups, Dips, and Military presses and you can still do isolation exercises like triceps extensions, bicep curls or chest flyes for definition but if trying to boost your Testosterone and build more muscle quickly - stick with compound exercises and…
  • According to a Swedish study… To get the biggest boost in testosterone when you do your compound exercises… Make sure you use heavy weights that will allow you to only do about 3-to-5 reps per set and you want to do about 5-to-8 sets of each compound exercise you do but…
  • You also want to limit your workout time on those compound exercises to 1-to-2 hours so just do only 1-to-2 compound exercises followed by a few optional isolation exercises twice a week (Mon. & Thur. for example) and as for burning fat…
  • Avoid 'sissy cardio' where you walk or run for long periods of time and start doing Manly Cardio workouts like Hill sprints and intervals 3-to-4 times a week and limit your long duration sissy cardio workouts to only 2 times a week and…
  • Make extra sure that you rest harder than you work out because overtraining leads to more cortisol and lower testosterone (see #7 again) and you may need to get 8+ hours of sleep to allow your body to recuperate and produce more testosterone after you workout like a man (see #6 again)and…
10. Try to get Sexually Stimulated as much as possible
If you're not getting sexual stimulated or sexual aroused very much right now (especially if you're over 40)…You can dramatically boost your testosterone levels by getting sexually stimulated more often so basically…
You need to start doing almost anything you can to get a sexually stimulating 'Viagra free' erection and German scientists even found that simply having an erection causes your levels of circulating testosterone to rise significantly and look at how these other 3 studies prove how much your testosterone can rise after getting sexual stimulated…

In a study done by Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Urban Ethology in Vienna… 10 men viewed a 15 minute pornographic film and the men's testosterone levels increased 100 percent afterwards.


Another study published by Psychoneuroendocrinology used sexually arousing films on 9 males and testosterone levels increased within 10 minutes of sexually arousal.


In a study published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior… Testosterone was measured every 15 min for 3 hours in 8 men before, during, and after the showing of a sexually explicit movie and there was an average increase of 35% in testosterone so…
Not getting sexual stimulated or aroused for long periods of time can actually decrease your testosterone levels so if you find it hard to get sexually stimulated… You can do all the other 12 things on this page to increase your testosterone which will increase your sex drive or libido making you get sexually stimulated much easier and/or…
You can take a supplement like Horny Goat Weedto make you get sexually stimulated more easier to ramp up your testosterone levels.
11. Make sure you're getting enough Vitamin A, B & E
Vitamins A , B & E (along with Vitamin C & zinc) are all essential in the production of testosterone and not getting enough A, B, & E Vitamins will lead to lower testosterone levels but…If you're eating plenty of fruits & veggies, lean meats and nuts then you shouldn't have to worry too much about supplementing with any extra A, B, & E Vitamins.
12. Don't overheat your testicles (your balls) Your testicles need to be 94-to-96 degrees or about 2 degrees cooler than your body temperature to function at it's best and produce the most testosterone so…
If you're wearing tight underwear, tight pants, take long HOT baths or do anything thing else to overheat your testicles… You may inhibit your testosterone production so it's best to wear looser clothes like boxers to prevent overheating your balls and did you also know that…
Carrying around excess fat also overheats your testicles so look at #3 again for how to burn fat.
13. Don't Drink any Alcohol & Don't eat any Grapefruit

Even if you had only 2 drinks a day… Alcohol makes it hard for your liver to breakdown estrogen making you have more estrogen & less testosterone which will cause you to become more woman-like by making you loose facial & pubic hair, get man boobs and become impotent and…
Alcohol decrease zinc levels in your body (look at #1 again) an just like alcohol - Grapefruits can also make it hard for your liver to breakdown estrogen.
14. Boost Testosterone 40% with D-Aspartate
D-Aspartate is an amino acid that's produced in your pituitary gland and your testicles (or your balls) and it boosts the production of testosterone plus…
D-Aspartate also increases sperm production and the Journal of Reproductive Biology and Endocrinology reported that men taking 3 grams of D-Aspartate every morning increased their testosterone by 40%

Monday, December 3, 2012

Fighting heart disease

NEW PILL BEATS HEART DISEASE
The wonderpill takes advantage of the live micro-organisms in “friendly” bacteria

The wonderpill takes advantage of the live micro-organisms in “friendly” bacteria
Wednesday November 21,2012

By Jo Willey

PEOPLE at risk from cholesterol could soon take a simple pill which controls levels and protects sufferers.
Scientists are hailing the treatment as a new fat-buster because of the way it helps to prevent the clogging up of patients’ arteries.

The wonderpill takes advantage of the live micro-organisms in “friendly” bacteria many people already take in the form of a yogurt drink or dietary supplement.

Just two capsules packed with healthy bacteria every day slashed cholesterol in the body.

In the study presented to the American Heart Association, the team from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, said the treatment made use of probiotics, the live micro-organisms present in the gut.

Dr Mitchell Jones, the study’s lead author said such treatments are drawing increasing medical attention as researchers unravel how supplementing gut bacteria with probiotics can play a role in health and chronic conditions such as heart disease.

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Scientists are hailing the treatment as a new fat-buster because of the way it helps to prevent the clogging up of patients’ arteries
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Previous studies found that a formulation of the bacteria known as lactobacillus reuteri has lowered blood levels of “bad” cholesterol.

Dr Jones’s team investigated whether this same probiotic could cut blood levels of the molecules of cholesterol attached to fatty acids, a potent combination linked to the risk of cardiovascular disease.
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Researchers tracked these molecules of cholesterol which were bound to saturated fat and have been linked to dangerous arterial plaque build-up and occur at higher levels in coronary artery disease patients.

For the first time, the research showed that the probiotic formulation can cut the molecules of cholesterol linked to fat – known as cholesterol esters – “and in particular reduce the cholesterol esters associated with ‘bad’ saturated fatty acids in the blood,” said Dr Jones.

“Good” cholesterol and blood triglycerides, a dangerous form of fat in the blood, were unchanged. The scientists say that lactobacillus bacteria alone may have an impact on cholesterol levels in several ways, including breaking apart molecules known as bile salts.

Dr Jones said: “Most dietary cholesterol management products require consumption between 2 to 25g a day.”

Patients appear to tolerate the probiotic well and it has a long history of safe use, he said.

Victoria Taylor of the British Heart Foundation said: “This is a relatively small piece of research and it’s still some way off before we could recommend probiotic supplements to help people with high cholesterol.

“In the meantime, reducing levels of saturated fat as part of a healthy, balanced diet is an important part of controlling cholesterol and cutting your risk of heart disease.”

Obesity kills at least 30,000 people a year in England alone and it is predicted that by 2025, half of men and a third of women in the UK will be obese, raising the risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke and cancer.

Previous research has hailed the health benefits of regularly taking probiotics.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia and Norwich Research Park found that a yogurt drink containing the bacteria lactobacillus casei shirota (LcS) could help bring relief to millions of hayfever sufferers by changing their immune system.

They found that yoghurt drinks containing LcS helped the immune system in responding to pollen.

Researchers at the Irish Agriculture and Food Development Authority engineered a strain of “friendly” live bacteria called lactobacillus to produce a fatty acid called conjugated linoleic acid, or CLA, which is linked to lower body fat in humans.

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Saturday, December 1, 2012

Stem cells being made from blood


Blood

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A patient's own blood has been used to make personalised stem cells, which doctors hope will eventually be used to treat a range of diseases.

The team at the University of Cambridge says this could be one of the easiest and safest sources of stem cells.

In a study, published in the journal Stem Cells: Translational Medicine, the cells were used to build blood vessels.

However, experts cautioned that the safety of using such stem cells was still unclear.

Stem cells are one of the great hopes of medical research. They can transform into any other type of cell the body is built from - so they should be able to repair everything from the brain to the heart, and eyes to bone.

Start Quote

It's a hell of a lot easier to get a blood sample than a high quality skin sample so that's a big benefit”
End Quote Prof Chris Mason University College London

One source of stem cells is embryos, but this is ethically controversial and they would be rejected by the immune system in the same way as an organ transplant.

Researchers have shown that skin cells taken from an adult can be tricked into becoming stem cells, which the body should recognise as part of itself and would not reject.

The team at Cambridge looked in blood samples for a type of repair cell that whizzes through the bloodstream repairing any damage to the walls of blood vessels. These were then converted into stem cells.

Dr Amer Rana said this method was better than taking samples from skin.

"We are excited to have developed a practical and efficient method to create stem cells from a cell type found in blood," he said.

"Tissue biopsies are undesirable - particularly for children and the elderly - whereas taking blood samples is routine for all patients."

Dr Rana told the BBC the cells also appeared to be safer to use than those made from skin.

"The fact that these appeared to be fairly stable is very promising," he said.

"The next stage obviously is to say, 'OK if we can do all this, let's actually make some clinical grade cells,' we can then move this technology into the clinic for the first time."

Prof Chris Mason, an expert on regenerative medicine at University College London, said there was some "beautiful work" coming out of the lab in Cambridge.

"It's a hell of a lot easier to get a blood sample than a high quality skin sample, so that's a big benefit," he said.

"However, induced pluripotent stem cells [those converted from adult cells] are still very new, we need far more experience to totally reprogram a cell in a way we know to be safe."

The British Heart Foundation said these cells had "great potential".