Health

New Delhi, Sep 1 (IANS) With 23 of the world’s top 50 life sciences companies establishing centres in the country, India has emerged as the global hub of Global Capability Centers (GCCs) for life sciences, according to a report on Monday.The report by advisory firm EY India showed that a majority of the companies established their presence in the country in the last five years. This is indicative of India’s growing role in driving pharmaceutical research, innovation, and end-to-end value creation.Notably, the life sciences GCCs have rapidly evolved from traditional back-office roles into strategic innovation engines.Far from being limited to support functions, these centers now play a critical role in global mandates such as drug discovery, digital therapeutics, and real-world evidence (RW...

New Delhi, Sep 1 (IANS) Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology Guwahati have developed a novel sensor from milk protein and thymine that can detect mercury and antibiotic contamination in water, which can lead to cancer.With rapid urbanisation, industrial activities, and overuse of pharmaceuticals, water contamination is becoming a pressing issue, putting ecosystems and human health at risk worldwide.The team built the nanosensor from extremely small materials that are a few billionths of a metre in size.The sensor uses carbon dots that glow under ultraviolet light. In the presence of harmful substances such as mercury or tetracyclines, the glow of these carbon dots dims, providing a quick and visible signal of contamination, even at low concentrations.“Detection of pollutants s...

Kozhikode (Kerala), Sep 1 (IANS) The fatal amoebic meningoencephalitis or ‘brain eating amoeba’ has claimed two more lives including a three-month-old infant in the past 24 hours in Kerala, officials confirmed on Monday.Both the patients succumbed to the disease at the Kozhikode Medical College Hospital. With these deaths, the toll from the amoebic brain fever in the state has risen to three within August, the officials said.In the first case, an infant who had been undergoing treatment for fever at Kozhikode Medical College Hospital, for the past one month, died of amoebic meningoencephalitis late on Sunday night.Health officials suspect that the water from the well of the infant’s house may have caused the infection, reported a local media.In the second incident, Ramla (53), wife of Moha...

New Delhi, Sep 1 (IANS) A new medication has been shown to significantly lower blood pressure in people whose levels stay dangerously high, despite taking several existing medicines, according to the results of a Phase III clinical trial.Globally, around 1.3 billion people have high blood pressure (hypertension), and in around half of cases, the condition is uncontrolled or treatment-resistant. These individuals face a much greater risk of heart attack, stroke, kidney disease, and early death.The international trial showed that after 12 weeks, patients taking the new drug baxdrostat (1 mg or 2 mg once daily in pill form) experienced a blood pressure reduction of around 9-10 mmHg more than those taking the placebo -- a reduction large enough to cut cardiovascular risk potentially.About 4 in...

New Delhi, Aug 31 (IANS) The Ministry of Ayush is set to organise a two-day event themed “National Ayush Mission and Capacity Building in States” at the All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA) here next week, an official statement said on Sunday.The summit on September 3-4 will be chaired by Prataprao Jadhav, Union Minister of State (Independent Charge), Ministry of Ayush and Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare.It aims to provide a platform for detailed discussions on state-specific notes and feedback notes received from state/UT officials, which also encompass grassroots-level inputs.Such a participatory approach is intended to strengthen and strategically expand the National Ayush Mission (NAM) — a flagship programme that promotes holistic healthcare by integrating Ayurveda, Y...

New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Surgery to treat chronic sinus disease can be more effective than antibiotics, according to a major clinical trial.The common symptoms of Chronic rhinosinusitis (CRS), or sinusitis, include a blocked and runny nose, loss of smell, facial pain, tiredness, and worsening of breathing problems, such as asthma. It’s often similar to the symptoms of a bad cold, but it can last for months or even years.The findings, published in the journal The Lancet, found that surgery was effective at relieving sinusitis symptoms, and trial participants who underwent surgery were still feeling better six months later. Of those who underwent surgery, 87 per cent said their quality of life had improved six months on.A three-month course of low-dose antibiotics was not found to be helpful...

New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Beta blockers, the standard treatment after a heart attack for the last 40 years, may offer no benefit for heart attack patients and can raise death risk in some women, according to a study on Saturday that called for a rejig into the standard treatment paradigm. Beta blockers are drugs commonly prescribed for a range of cardiac conditions, including heart attacks. It provides no clinical benefit for patients who have had an uncomplicated myocardial infarction with preserved heart function.The study presented at the European Society of Cardiology Congress in Madrid and simultaneously published in The New England Journal of Medicine and in the European Heart Journal, showed that women treated with beta blockers had a higher risk of death, heart attack, or hospitalis...

New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Intake of healthy gut bacteria in a pill form can act as a holy grail to tackle weight loss as well as metabolic syndrome that drives the risk of heart disease and diabetes, according to a study.Metabolic syndrome is a cluster of five conditions -- high blood pressure, high blood sugar, large waist circumference, high triglycerides (fat in the blood), and low HDL (‘good’) cholesterol.The study, published in the scientific journal Nature Communications, showed that the transfer of healthy gut bacteria via a single capsule may bring significant health benefits.A team of researchers from the University of Auckland included 87 obese adolescents to probe whether faecal transfer (taking ‘good’ gut bacteria from healthy donors and giving them in capsule form to people wit...

New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Even a small amount of ultra-processed foods can lead to increased weight, hormone disruption, and poor sperm quality in men, finds a study.An international team of scientists has now discovered that people gain more weight on an ultra-processed diet compared to a minimally processed diet, even when they eat the same number of calories.The study, published in the journal Cell Metabolism, in humans also revealed that a diet high in ultra-processed foods introduces higher levels of pollutants that are known to affect sperm quality.“Our results prove that ultra-processed foods harm our reproductive and metabolic health, even if they’re not eaten in excess. This indicates that it is the processed nature of these foods that makes them harmful,” said lead author Jessica ...

New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Metals, particularly nickel and vanadium, and sulphate particles -- components of fine particulate air pollution (PM2.5) -- can worsen asthma and lead to hospitalisation, according to a new study.The study, published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, showed that for each decile increase in the pollutant mixture, asthma hospitalisations increased 10.6 per cent among children and 8 per cent among adults ages 19 to 64.Nickel, vanadium, sulfate, nitrate, bromine, and ammonium contributed the most weight to this association."If we want to reduce asthma hospitalisations, these are the sources that need to be better controlled -- which we know how to do," said corresponding author Joel Schwartz, professor of environmental epidemiology at H...