Ditemukan, Vaksin AIDS pada Tubuh ODHA

PENELITI Amerika selangkah lebih dekat untuk mengembangkan vaksin melawan virus AIDS yang mematikan. Mereka menemukan antibodi yang mampu membunuh 91 persen virus HIV.

Ilmuwan menemukan tiga antibodi kuat dalam sel tubuh seorang pria gay keturunan Afrika-Amerika berusia 60 tahun yang dijuluki Donor 45. Bahkan satu di antaranya adalah antibodi yang menetralisir lebih dari 91 persen virus HIV. Tubuh pria tersebut membuat antibodi secara alami. Demikian okezone lansir dari NY Daily News, Senin (12/7/2010).

Dalam kasus Donor 45—yang antibodinya tidak menyelamatkan dirinya dari tertular HIV—peneliti menyaring sekira 25 juta sel untuk menemukan puluhan sel yang nantinya bisa menghasilkan antibodi yang kuat. Pria tersebut kemungkinan besar sudah tertular virus HIV sebelum tubuhnya mulai memroduksi antibodi. Hingga kini, ia masih hidup, dan telah mengidap HIV selama 20 tahun pada saat darahnya diambil.

Para peneliti berkeinginan membuat sebuah vaksin yang akan memungkinkan tubuh setiap orang untuk membuat antibodi serupa Donor 45. Penelitian ini diharapkan bisa membuka jalan untuk membuat vaksin yang tidak hanya efektif terhadap virus AIDS, tetapi juga virus penyakit lainnya, dan telah menjadi bagian penting dari penelitian AIDS.

Bicara soal vaksin tersebut, Gary Nabel, Direktur Vaccine Research Center di National Institute of Allergy and Infections Disease yang juga pimpinan penelitian mengatakan, "Akan butuh kerja keras. Kami akan berada di sini untuk sementara (sebelum vaksin menunjukkan manfaat yang jelas)."

Tahun lalu, efektivitas yang ditunjukkan vaksin HIV pertama terbukti mengecewakan. Menyusul penelitian vaksin berikutnya di Thailand yang menurut statistik mencapai kisaran sukses hingga 30 persen. Tapi, penemuan antibodi ini baru dapat menghasilkan treatment yang lebih menjanjikan.

"Antibodi melekat pada bagian virus yang tidak berubah, dan ini menjelaskan mengapa virus dapat menetralkan berbagai jenis HIV yang mematikan," kata Dr John Mascola, salah seorang peneliti.

Menyusun penemuan antibodi menjadi vaksin HIV yang efektif akan menjadi penelitian yang sulit, karena peneliti harus memulainya dari bagian penting virus di mana antibodi melekat padanya. Kemudian, merancang vaksin menggunakan bagian virus tersebut untuk mendorong tubuh membuat antibodi seperti yang ditemukan pada Donor 45.

Penemuan—dipaparkan dalam edisi online Journal Science—ini ditemukan hanya beberapa hari sebelum Konferensi AIDS Internasional di Vienna yang rencananya akan dilangsungkan 18-23 Juli 2010. Penelitian ini diharapkan menjadi fokus pertemuan mengingat jumlah orang dengan HIV/AIDS (ODHA) kian bertambah.
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Thermography, Mammography or Ultrasound?

One of the most frequent questions I am asked as a clinical thermographer is: “What exactly is the difference between mammography, ultrasound and thermography?” There seems to be some confusion on this subject by thinking that one replaces the other as tests, nothing could be further from the truth. Both mammography and ultrasound are structural (anatomical) tests, while thermography is a functional (physiological) test. None of these tests are truly diagnostic technologies. Thermography images the breast and surrounding area and provides us with risk assessment, while mammography and ultrasound detect structural abnormalities. If a breast abnormality is found that could possibly be malignant, a biopsy is performed. A biopsy removes a tissue sample for examination under a microscope.

Many women after their initial assessment with thermography may be asked to follow up either with an ultrasound or mammogram or both to rule out the existing pathology. Frequently some will be relieved that their mammogram or ultrasound test results show no abnormal findings, however this does not necessarily mean that nothing is going on with their breasts. Several other factors may be contributing to a high risk (abnormal) thermogram, such as: hormonal imbalance, early angiogenesis (proliferation of blood vessels), lymphatic swellings and poor function and other contributing factors – all of these are important contributors to breast disease and malignancy and are not detected by mammography or ultrasound as these factors do not appear as structural changes.

The following is a list comparing all three types of tests with their pros and cons:

Mammography

• Structural test: can pinpoint the location of suspicious area

• Compresses the breast

• X-ray radiation produces an image; the area of concern must have greater density to stand out against regular tissue

• Can detect tumors in mainly slow growing stage or pre-invasive stage

• Cannot detect fast growing tumors in the pre-invasive stage

• The use of hormones decreases sensitivity

• Large, dense and fibrocystic breasts are difficult to read

• The upper portions of the breast including the tail of the breast and the Axillary region cannot be visualized

• Can detect tumors 1-2 years earlier than physical examination

• Average Specificity 75% (25% false-positive) 9 out of 10 biopsies initiated by mammography are negative

• Average Sensitivity 80% with 20% of cancers missed in women over age 50

in women under age 50 Sensitivity is 60% or 40% of cancers missed

Ultrasound

• Structural test, can pinpoint the location of suspicious area

• Uses sound waves with moderate contact

• High frequency sound waves are bounced off the breast tissue and collected as an echo to produce an image

• Able to detect some tumors missed by mammography

• No data available on detecting pre-invasive tumors

• May be affected by the hormonal influence due to the menstrual cycle, (i.e. cystic changes)

• All areas of the breast and Axillary region can be analyzed

Ultrasound - continued

• Good for distinguishing between solid and fluid masses, helpful in investigating an area of concern due to mammography, thermography or physical examination findings

• Average Specificity 66% (34% false positive)

• Average Sensitivity 83% (17% of cancers missed)

Thermography

• Functional testing, able to detect physiological changes, cannot pinpoint the exact location of suspicious area

• No radiation, non-invasive, no risk, can be used as often as necessary to observe the effectiveness of treatment over time

• Uses infrared detectors to detect heat and increased vascularity that may be related to angiogenesis

• Can detect physiological changes many years prior to any other method of screening

• Very sensitive to fast growing aggressive tumors

• Hormonal activity in the breast will affect thermographic imaging but not to the point of abnormality

• All breast shapes, conditions and areas are within the scope of imaging

• Earliest warning system with breast tissue and physiological changes that usually precedes tumor formation years prior to its occurrence

• Average Specificity 90% (10% false positive)

• Average Sensitivity 90% (10% cancers missed) most of these are slow growing tumors with low metabolic rate in the area with a high rate of survival

Of course everyone has heard by now that early detection prolongs life expectancy, this is a given. However if cancer has been detected early, it would mean that you already have cancer. Prevention should take precedence over detection. Prevention means not getting cancer in the first place. If we are going to reverse the present trend of the epidemic proportion of breast cancer, we need to come up with a more proactive approach, which needs to become the norm for patient assessment. Cancer starts with one abnormal cell, and it takes nearly 8 years for that one abnormal cell to replicate to one billion cells. One billion cells produce a detectable lump that is one centimeter in size. This is the size of a lump that can be seen on a mammogram. This is not an early finding.

Every woman should know her risk for breast cancer. With proper risk assessment that includes different testing modalities, the patient is able to determine her risk factors and develop an action plan on how to improve the breast tissue or even reverse the existing trend. The current screening strategy is not enough to protect women from breast cancer. Medical infrared imaging should be added to every woman’s regular breast health care.
by: Cynthia Simmons
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Jangan Anggap Remeh Stres

TERNYATA tidak hanya penyakit fisik saja yang menjadi pemicu timbulnya penyakit jantung, namun penyakit yang berhubungan dengan psikis menjadi satu faktor penyebabnya, yaitu depresi. Diketahui bahwa stres akan membuat pembuluh darah menyempit, tekanan darah meningkat, dan kadar kolesterol meningkat.

Banyak penelitian yang sudah menunjukkan bahwa bila menghadapi situasi yang tegang, dapat terjadi arithmias jantung yang membahayakan jiwa. Orang yang mudah stres dua kali lipat lebih mudah terkena penyakit jantung. Dikatakan oleh ahli kejiwaan dari Rumah Sakit Internasional Omni Alam Sutera Tangerang, dr Andri SpKJ, pasien dengan riwayat depresi yang sering muncul mempunyai peningkatan rata-rata risiko kematian 4 sampai 5 kali setelah infark miokardium daripada yang tidak depresi. Depresi setelah infark miokard berhubungan dengan timbulnya infark kembali dan kematian.

Ketika semua faktor pemicu penyakit jantung bisa terkontrol, ternyata masih ada faktor lain yang bisa membuat jantung meradang. Faktor itu adalah depresi. Depresi ini pun merupakan faktor risiko yang tersendiri (independen) yang memicu munculnya penyakit jantung koroner pada pria dan wanita. ”Depresi dapat menyebabkan kematian tiba-tiba lewat kerja pada saraf vagus, yang berhubungan dengan detak jantung,” tuturnya.

Andri menjelaskan, depresi menyebabkan penurunan suatu zat dalam tubuh yang dinamakan serotonin. Penurunan kadar serotonin ini berhubungan dengan perubahan perlengketan platelet. Hal ini membuat orang yang depresi mempunyai kecenderungan plateletnya lengket di pembuluh darah (jantung).

Melihat hubungan yang sangat erat antara faktor psikologis dan penyakit jantung, maka jangan segan-segan untuk berkonsultasi dengan psikiater bidang psikosomatik yang banyak berhubungan dengan kasus-kasus demikian. ”Dengan penanganan stres dan depresi pada pasien jantung yang tepat, maka penanganan penyakit jantung pun akan semakin baik dan kualitas hidup pasien akan semakin meningkat,” sarannya.

Hubungan antara stres dan jantung juga pernah diungkap oleh ahli epidemiologi dari University College London, Tarani Chandola. Dalam penelitian yang melibatkan 10.000 responden itu terungkap bahwa stres memiliki peran lebih banyak terkait dengan perubahan biologis dibandingkan yang diperkirakan sebelumnya.

”Ini kali pertama penelitian yang melibatkan responden dalam jumlah besar tentang pengukuran efek stres terkait pekerjaan sehari-hari yang mengakibatkan penyakit jantung. Salah satu masalahnya adalah orang yang hidup skeptis dalam tekanan pekerjaan memengaruhi orang itu secara biologis,” ujar Tarani.

Stres bisa membuat kekacauan sistem internal tubuh yang berujung terganggunya kinerja jantung. Terganggunya kinerja jantung akan menyebabkan penumpukan dan menutup darah di saluran arteri, tekanan darah tinggi, dan menghancurkan sistem darah.
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How Music Therapy can help Autism

There are literally hundreds if not thousands of alternative therapies that can help in a wide range of different ways. In this article we are going to look at music therapy and autism. We will firstly give brief information on what autism is and also what music therapy is. We will then consider the ways in which music therapy can help those who suffer from autism.

What is Autism?

Autism is a neurological disorder that affects the normal functioning of the brain. There is no cure for the condition and the severity can vary between sufferers. However sufferers may find communication and understanding difficult. In addition to that many are thought to have exceptional talents in some forms of their life but find more basic things impossible to carry out. Autism is normally diagnosed when a child is about 30 months old but it is important to get a proper diagnosis to ensure you know exactly what you are dealing with.

What is Music Therapy?

Music therapy is basically the use of music to bring about change. Often it is used to change the mood or perspective of a person. This is something that you may notice on a day to day basis as a particular song could make you feel sad or happy. The process of music therapy is to use this ability to bring about change in people’s lives. It may be to help bring back memories in those suffering from dementia or to help relax a person suffering from stress. The uses and benefits of music therapy are vast and cannot be ignored.

Music Therapy and Autism

Music therapy can be useful for people who suffer from autism as the theory is based on the fact that everyone has a response to music regardless of their handicap. In fact music has been used to help sufferers of autism since the 1950s and the benefits are widely accepted.

One of the biggest benefits of music therapy is it can aid with both verbal and non-verbal communication for people with autism. This is particularly useful as one of the problems people suffering from autism have is their ability to communicate with others. It is thought that music can help as it reduces stress and strain and with it helps to build relationships. This can easily be put into practice by a parent singing to their child.

It is also thought that the use of music can help a child suffering from autism to develop self-expression in a creative way. This can have a large number of benefits as it can help to grow their confidence and also help with their emotional satisfaction. The benefits are very great and wide ranging and something that should be considered.

Conclusion

If your child has been diagnosed as suffering with autism then please discuss the use of music therapy with your doctor. They may be able to recommend a centre that your child can visit and experience music therapy. You may also find that it is offered at the hospital where your child is being treated. If you are not sure about music therapy then please do some more research but it really can help and is worth considering as something to really benefit your child.
by: Mercedes Aspland
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Toxic Chemicals In Food: Your Number 1 Weight Loss Enemy

Although most people logically acknowledge that chemicals in food are bad for them they do not really understand the full implications especially its direct connections to the metabolism and storage of excess body fat.

Firstly, the more chemicals that a person consumes from their food, the harder the liver must work to metabolize and flush out all of the toxins from the body. What does this have to do with fat loss? The liver is the body's number one fat burning organ and its health and function is closely related to how lean your physique will be. The more time it spends processing chemicals (including alcohol), the less it has to properly regulate your metabolism, burn fat and keep you looking lean and toned.

Here's some statistics to clearly put you in the picture:

The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) currently lists about 2800 international food additives and about 3000 chemicals added deliberately to the food supply. Including chemicals used in food production from ground to stomach, the number rises to between 10,000 and 15,000. William Kellas and Andrea Dworkin -Surviving in a toxic world There are currently over 100,000 chemicals approved for use in Europe alone with over 8000 more added each year. The Danish Environmental Authority entered all that was known about 40,000 chemicals into a database and concluded: " 20,624 to be dangerous, of this number 9,538 acutely dangerous when consumed. " A further 9,668 incur allergic reactions. " 1678 are mutagenic. " 642 incur cancer.

Another massive problem with processed foods is that almost all of them contain refined white sugar. This can be in several forms such as sugar, sucrose, corn syrup etc but the bottom line is that all are highly detrimental to your health and achieving the body you deserve. This section is quite detailed but it's important that you know the TRUTH about how white sugar just totally destroys your ability to get lean and muscular and with this knowledge 'eating clean' becomes a powerfully sane choice. The following information comes from 'Sugar Blues' by William Duffy. Why is sugar toxic to the body? In 1957 Dr William Coda Martin tried to answer the question: When is a food a food and when is it a poison? His working definition of "poison" was: "Medically: Any substance applied to the body, ingested or developed within the body, which causes or may cause disease. Dr Martin classified refined sugar as a POISON because it has been depleted of its life forces, vitamins and minerals.

This is why the KEY principle above all else in your eating plan will be to eat only natural, unprocessed (and organic whenever possible) foods. Reducing the chemical build-up and intake will get your liver burning fat and speed up your metabolism so you are a better fat burning machine 24/7.

Obviously with the amounts of chemicals most people typically consume from the foods they generally eat, the liver cannot process them all so they become stored in the body until they can be processed. If the chemical barrage would stop these 'chemical stockpiles' would get around to being processed but unfortunately since there are more chemicals taken in every day, the stockpiles get larger and larger. Also many of these chemicals cause an acidity in the body that needs to be neutralized lest it literally burn and damage cells and tissue including your hard earned muscle that you spend hours in the gym developing.
by: Ben Kong
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Workplace Eustress Mangagement

Is it possible to manage work place stress? Yes. And practice is necessary. And what could a counselor teach about workplace stress anyway?

Based on my experience with my anger management and domestic violence folks, everyone can give lip service to the idea that stress is experienced internally, but within seconds of saying that I need to change my thoughts to change my feelings, etc, almost all of my clients begin to tell me all over again about the external world, as if once that is in order, then there will be no more stress. Incidentally, that is a very important aspect of power and control belief systems, that controlling the external world.

In order to interrupt the thinking pattern which involves controlling the uncontrollable, I will ask my clients where they see me.

Most of them are quite surprised, and will answer that they see me across the room, somewhere outside of themselves.

I tell them matter of factly that they are wrong. And they are, they see me only in the visual cortex of their brain, inside their head.

While it looks like I am outside you, the experience of vision happens only in the brain, inside you, and the processing of photons is actually separate from the interpretation placed on the experience by your brain, but that interpretation is yours and yours alone, and if that interpretation changes the inside of your body in a way that brings adrenalin and cortisol, it is your words-in-your-brain interpretation that does that, not the external world.

I then ask my clients where they hear me, and repeat the same sequence of questions.

The same for the senses of smell, and its relationship to the limbic brain, taste, and pressure and the sensory motor cortex.

We end up with a everyone acknowledging that their entire sensory experience and reality is created in their brain, and the human next to them may have an entirely different reality.

That usually stops the story telling and external focus for awhile, and I have actually laid down the groundwork for future reminders that about trying to control the external which is impossible.

So now folks have an object lesson about where stress exists, which is inside, and what causes the stress chemistry, which is their thoughts about the sensory experience.

Now we can begin to teach some tools about changing thoughts or breathing or both to change feelings, and then the next thing that we usually run into is the short lived length of stress management tools.

Those comments run along the lines of, 'Well, I did that deep breathing stuff, and it worked while I was doing it but it went away as soon as the phone rang....' as if to say that stress management should produce a high because adrenalin and cortisol can produce a high.

There are number of approaches that I use at this moment to teach about stress management as a heart beat by heart beat process or a thought by thought process.

I like to indicate to my clients, using some data from the book FLOW by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi,Ph.D. that the sensory nervous system processes data in packages of seven bits and that the shortest time between packages is 1/18th second, which is about twice as fast as you can blink your eyes, so this workplace stress management is going to need to become as habitual as the stress producing thinking, then choices can be made. (Stress vs. unstress, if you will).

And then I use a metaphor of driving. If I can learn to pay attention to the inside of my body like I pay attention to changing road conditions and variables literally turn of the wheel by turn of the wheel, and make many small changes to the position and speed of the vehicle, I will get to my destination safely.

By extension, workplace stress management becomes a process of attending to my thinking and breathing and making small frequent adjustments to keep the stress chemistry in a place of eustress rather than distress.

If fact there is some excellent evidence from EEG research done by Barry Sterman, Ph.D., with Top Gun pilots that effective relaxation can be done by switching brain wave patterns from beta to alpha, work to rest, and back in cycles per second, so folks get it that stress management does not mean that they are going to achieve nirvana and never have adrenalin or cortisol again.

Now my clients need a tool that will help them get my metaphor physically and here is where I introduce a heart rate variability biofeedback program, which is a computerized program that gives clients an almost real time (very close) picture of how their thinking and breathing impact their body.

Most of my clients are pretty amazed at the changes the computer shows them about their heart rate variability coherence, which is impacted by thoughts, while the client is sitting quietly, looking at a computer screen, and that change happens heart beat by heart beat.

I have yet to have a session in over ten years of use that did not provide information to my client about the validity of changing focus from external to internal for workplace stress management.

There is lots of very interesting science that the heart rate variability biofeedback folks have made available to buttress their product, and I will weave that into my teaching, but what really gets the attention of folks actively engaged in work/career is the impact that relaxation has on the growth of new neurons, and the opening of higher perceptual centers when relaxed for better decision making.

We did not know that we grow new neurons daily, which makes the brain bigger, which is better, in my my mind, until 10-15 years ago, and the research is saying that we can minimize that newly discovered capacity of the human brain by exposing those new neurons to excess adrenalin and cortisol.

The key to workplace stress management then is attention and choice heart beat by heart beat. After all, if your heart stops, do you have to worry about stress management?
by: Michael Logan
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Natural Cure for Flatulence (Wind)

Why does it always happen in a crowded elevator? That's what I'd like to know. Or even worse, you are out with a potential new boyfriend or girlfriend, and you really want to impress, when all of a sudden, WOOMPPFF! Embarrassing or what???

But don't despair! The problem is probably a simple result of eating the wrong foods or too much beer. Lets check out some darn fine ways of dealing with bad smells that don't cost much, and are totally natural.

Tip 1 - try eating 'activated charcoal'. Charcoal tablets absorb the gases that cause wind, and you can eat 'em inconspicuously several times a day if the problem is really bad.

Tip 2 - Chew food thoroughly. At www.freeremedies.com we always chew our food 100 times, whether it needs it or noMore chewing means less air when you swallow, and less air means less ammo for the old 'asscannon'.

Tip 3 - avoid know 'hell raiser' foods like cabbage, beans, sweetcorn, brussel sprouts, spinach, squid and monkfish. Although high-fibre foods are useful in your diet, they can lead to bloating, and unpleasant sound effects, especially when fermeted internally with any kind of alcohol.

Tip 4 - Fizzy drinks are a no-no. Give up the colas, 7-ups, beers, and other carbonated drinks. Champagne in moderation is actually ok, for reasons scientists don't fully understand yet.

Tip 5 - Caffeine causes colonic combustion! The caffeine in tea, coffee, pepsi etc can irritate the colon, and this obviously doesn't help.

Tip 5 - and this is the biggie, never try to 'hold it in'. Boffing is a natural function, and cracking one out is just the body's way of expelling un-needed gas. If you try to bottle it up, it will only come back later, double the strength. Don't give 'em time to brew, just sneak them out whenever you can!
by: Stu Collins
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