3D Organ Printer Printing a Human Kidney and more - Dr. Anthony Atala, Head of Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest University, NC

Online Health Expert Major Medical News Flash: 3D Organ Printers (Computer-aided jet-based 3D tissue engineering of living human organs with human cells, patient's own cells, grown in culture medium and the use of thin layers of thermo-reversible gel as printing paper following a 3D Volumetric Imaging of the Organ needed) are here to soon eliminate the wait time and the need for immunesuppression for Organ Transplantation as there would be no Transplant Rejection.

In the video below you will see Dr. Anthony Atala, Head of Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest Institute for Regenerative Medicine at Wake Forest School of Medicine at Wake Forest University, NC at TED conference in Mar. 2011 printing a human kidney on stage using a 3D organ printer. The Kidney is not ready to be really transplanted just yet. In a few years this technology which uses bio-compatible scaffolding (thermo-reversible gel) and human cells either differentiated from stem cells belonging to the patient or healthy organ cells from the patient's organ cultured outside the body will be used instead of ink in 3D printers and will actually print out the needed organ layer by layer. This will eliminate the need to wait for an organ donor and any risk or organ rejection after transplantation surgery. This will also eliminate the need for any immune suppression.

Thank you for updating your Medical Knowledge at Online Health Expert.

Sincerely.

Dr. Harish Malik

Online health Expert News Report: Commonly Used Indian Spice and Food Coloring Agent Turmeric's (Haldi-in HIndi)Standardized Extract HSS-888 Shown to Inhibit or Improve Plaque Burden in Alzheimer's Transgenic Mice.

Online Health Expert Medical News Flash: Indian Spice and Food coloring agent Turmeric (called Haldi - in Hindi) Extract as a New and Promising Herbal Treatment for Alzheimer's Disease is on the Horizon.


In the Aug 30, 2011 edition of the Current Alzheimer Research journal [Epub ahead of print] researchers from the Herbal Science Group, LLC located in Naples, Florida, USA performed an in vivo study on "Alzheimer" transgenic mice (Tg2576) and showed that the Standardized Turmeric Extract (HSS-888) showed promising first step in Botanical based therapies for Alzheimer's disease by inhibiting Beta Amyloid  (soluble 40% and insoluble 20%) or improving Phosphorylated Tau Protein plaque burden (80%), and microglial inflammation leading to neuronal toxicity.


Further Reading and Sources:


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Sincerely, 


Dr. Harish Malik

Online Health Expert Medical News Report: Increase in the resting heart rate over a 10-year period independently increases risk of death from all causes and from ischemic heart disease.

Online Health Expert Medical News Flash: According to a study done by Javaid Newman, PhD and colleagues at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway and published in the December 21, 2001 issue of JAMA, an increase in the resting heart rate (RHR) over a 10-year period had an increased risk of death from all causes and from ischemic heart disease (IHD). The study enrolled 30,000 healthy men and women who were followed for a period of 12 years.


The researchers found that compared with participants with a RHR of less than 70 bpm at both measurements (10 years apart), participants with a RHR of less than 70 bpm at the first measurement but greater than 85 bpm at the second measurement had a 90 percent increased risk of death from IHD. Participants with RHRs between 70-85 bpm at the first measurement and greater than 85 bpm at the second measurement had an 80 percent increased risk.


There is already some preexisting evidence that a high RHR is associated with increased cardiovascular disease and death in the general population, independent of conventional risk factors like age, smoking, hypertension, dyslipidemia, alcohol intake, physical inactivity etc. But this was the first time a study was done to show how the increase in the RHR over a period of time independently impacts death from all causes and IHD. A previous study involving 129,135 postmenopausal women done in 2009 was able to establish RHR as an independent predictor for coronary events in women. Women with high RHR (more than 76 bpm) were significantly more likely to suffer a coronary event compared to women with lowest RHR ( 62 bpm or less). This correlation was strongest in the ages 50-64 years and less strong for women 65 years or over. There have been similar previous studies showing the direct correlation between high RHR and increased coronary events among men.


These studies including the one done by Dr. Newman further support for the hypothesis that RHR may be an important prognostic marker for IHD and total mortality. Information on RHR and its time-related changes which are so simple to perform and pretty easy to obtain and follow-up and may be useful in identifying asymptomatic healthy people who could benefit from measures of primary prevention to reduce coronary events and all cause mortality and promote longevity through timely interventions.


More research needs to be done how the results from this study can be extrapolated to sick individuals and whether or not decreasing RHR will result in a decrease in all cause mortality.


Sources and further reading:


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This is yet another study along with many others which shows the importance of low RHR and keeping it low over time. An easy way to achieve it is to join Online Health Expert's Free and revolutionary "Move Movement". I encourage everyone to learn more and live a  longer and healthier life.




Thank you for updating your medical knowledge at Online Health Expert. 


Sincerely,


Dr. Harish Malik

Online Health Expert Medical News Report: Functional MRI Brain Scans Yield Clues to Physician Decision Making.

Online Health Expert Medical News Flash: According to an Interesting study published in the journal PLoS One done on 35 experienced Physicians using 64 virtual case studies during training and 64 virtual patients in the testing phase and Functional MRI scans of their brains to elucidate their decision making process, the research team led by Dr. Jonathan Downar, Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine in Ontario, Canada showed that Doctors who learned mainly from their successes showed low performance and a tended to make sub-optimal decision making compared to their high performing colleagues who learned equally from their mistakes (failures) and successes (positive outcomes). 


High performing Doctors' brains achieve better outcomes by attending to informative failures during training rather than chasing the reward value of successes.


This finding, labeled as confirmation bias and success chasing was shown to hinder associative learning which together produced or solidified the false beliefs in low performing physicians in this study. 


This leads us to believe that disconfirmation learning might be more beneficial in teaching Medical students and Residents so that they will not become success chasers and would be able to learn from their mistakes in the simulated clinical case scenarios and would be worthwhile to incorporate as a part of their training to improve patient outcomes. Further testing needs to be done to find direct evidence to support this type of training and its benefits.


Online Health Expert recommends learning more from one's failures rather than successes alone. It is the key to avoid spurious learning and is true for everyone and not only Doctors.


Further Reading and Sources:


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Thank you for updating your medical knowledge at Online Health Expert. 


Sincerely,


Dr. Harish Malik