Tag Archives: texas

Pregnant woman dies, gives birth, comes back to life

When a pregnant teacher in Texas collapsed, her coworkers rushed to help. The woman technically died, gave birth and then was brought back to life. Erica Nigrelli, an English teacher at Elkins High School in Missouri City, Texas, collapsed in a co-worker's classroom when she was 36 weeks pregnant. “Apparently I told her, 'I feel very faint,' and I put my head down and I essentially just passed out,” Erica Nigrelli said. Erica's husband, Nathan, is also a teacher at Elkins. “I opened the door and walked in and Erica was laying on the floor,” he said. Erica Nigrelli's heart had stopped. Some co-workers started CPR and used a defibrillator to get it working again. They kept her alive until paramedics came and rushed her to the hospital. Doctors delivered baby Elayna by emergency caesarean section. It was technically a post-mortem delivery because Erica's heart wasn't beating. “There were two lives that were hanging in the balance the whole time.” Erica Nigrelli had an undetected heart defect, and the fact mom and baby are here today is a testament to her co-workers. Erica Nigrelli is only 32 years old, but doctors installed a pacemaker. Three-month-old Elayna now weighs a whopping 9 pounds, and could be off oxygen as early as next week. Click for more from My Fox Las Vegas. source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/24/pregnant-woman-dies-gives-birth-comes-back-to-life/

Nearly all US states see hefty drop in teen births

NEW YORK – & The nation's record-low teen birth rate stems from robust declines in nearly every state, but most dramatically in several Mountain States and among Hispanics, according to a new government report. All states but West Virginia and North Dakota showed significant drops over five years. But the Mountain States of Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Nevada and Utah saw rates fall by 30 percent or more. In 22 states, teen Hispanic birth rates plunged at least 40 percent, which was described as “just amazing,” by the report's lead author, Brady Hamilton of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. What's driving the declines? No one can say for sure. Experts believe the explanation is complicated and probably varies a bit from state to state. The national figure has been falling since 1991, aside from a brief interruption in 2006 and 2007. The CDC report released Thursday is based on birth certificates for 2007 through 2011. Last year, the CDC announced the overall improvement in teen births: a record low of 31 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19. That compares to 42 births per 1,000 five years earlier. The new report focuses on state figures in 2011: -- Lowest rates are in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut and Vermont, each with rates under 17 per 1,000. -- Highest rates overall continue to be in the South, led by Arkansas and Mississippi, each with rates of about 50 per 1,000. In Arkansas, the majority of teen births are to white moms. In Mississippi, the majority are black. -- White teens continue to have the lowest birth rate nationally -- about 22 births per 1,000. Black teens saw a larger improvement, but their rate was still more than twice the white rate, at 47 per 1,000. -- Overall, the Hispanic rate plummeted from 75 to 49 per 1,000, now virtually a tie with the black rate. The teen drop in the last five years coincided with an overall decline in births, which experts attribute to a weak economy that dampened enthusiasm for having children. Hispanic women have been part of that trend, possibly due to the economy and to illegal immigration crackdowns in some states that reduce the number of young Hispanic females entering the country from Mexico and other nations, said John Santelli, a Columbia University professor of population and family health. That means new immigrants are having less impact on birth statistics, and second- and third-generation families are having more influence. As time goes on, Hispanics -- like other immigrant groups before them -- tend to adopt American customs and practices. “There is more attention on education, career, and the future,” said Dr. Janet Realini, head of Healthy Futures of Texas, a San Antonio-based organization focused on preventing teen and unplanned pregnancies. Hispanic rates, though, continue to be much higher than those for blacks and whites in most of the states with the largest Hispanic populations, including California, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Arizona, Colorado, New Mexico and Georgia. Texas has the highest number of teen births in the nation, with nearly 43,000 in 2011. Nearly two-thirds were to Hispanic moms. The overall improvement, though, is something to celebrate, said Bill Albert, chief program officer of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen and Unplanned Pregnancy. “Geography, politics, or policy alone simply cannot explain the widespread declines,” Albert said in an email. “Credit goes to teens themselves who are clearly making better decisions about sex, contraception, and their future.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/23/nearly-all-us-states-see-hefty-drop-in-teen-births/

Vietnam War chemical tied to aggressive prostate cancer risk

Men who were exposed to Agent Orange chemicals used during the Vietnam War are at higher risk for life-threatening prostate cancer than unexposed veterans, researchers have found. What's more, those who served where the herbicide was used were diagnosed with cancer about five years earlier than other men, on average, in the new study. “This is a very, very strong predictor of lethal cancer,” said urologist Dr. Mark Garzotto, who worked on the study at the Portland Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Oregon. “If you're a person who's otherwise healthy and you've been exposed to Agent Orange, that has important implications for whether you should be screened or not screened,” he told Reuters Health. But one researcher not involved in the new study said it's hard to take much away from it, given the imprecise way it measured exposure. Agent Orange - named after the giant orange drums in which the chemicals were stored - was used by the U.S. military to destroy foliage, mainly in southern Vietnam. The herbicide was often contaminated with a type of dioxin, a potently carcinogenic chemical. The Vietnam Red Cross Society has estimated that up to one million Vietnamese suffered disabilities or health problems as a result of Agent Orange, including children born with birth defects years after their parents were exposed. Past research has also suggested that U.S. veterans who served where Agent Orange was used are at an increased risk of lymphoma and certain other cancers, including prostate cancer. For the new study, researchers wanted to see whether exposure was more closely linked to slow-growing prostate cancers or aggressive tumors. They analyzed medical records belonging to 2,720 veterans who were referred to the Portland VA for a prostate biopsy. About one in 13 of those men had been exposed to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, according to their VA intake interviews. One third of all men in the study were diagnosed with prostate cancer, about half of which were high-grade cancers - the more aggressive and fast-growing type. When the researchers took men's age, race, weight and family history of cancer into account, they found those with Agent Orange exposure were 52 percent more likely than unexposed men to have any form of prostate cancer. Separating out different types of tumors showed the herbicide was not linked to an increased risk of slower-growing, low-grade cancer. But it was tied to a 75 percent higher risk of being diagnosed with aggressive prostate cancer, the study team reported Monday in the journal Cancer. “The increase in the rate of cancers was almost exclusively driven by the potentially lethal cancers,” said Garzotto, also from Oregon Health & Science University. More research is needed to figure out exactly why that is, he said. In the meantime, Garzotto said veterans who were exposed to Agent Orange should discuss that with their doctors. But Dr. Arnold Schecter, from the University of Texas School of Public Health's Environmental and Occupational Health Sciences Program in Dallas, said there's a “big problem” with just asking veterans if they were exposed to Agent Orange or served in an area where it was sprayed. “Of those most heavily exposed in the military as best we know, only a relatively small percentage of them had elevated dioxin from Agent Orange in their blood when tested by (the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention),” he told Reuters Health. Schecter said that in Vietnam, people who have high levels of that type of dioxin in their blood live in places where the chemical has become integrated into the food supply - or were sprayed directly with Agent Orange. Another researcher who has studied the effects of Agent Orange agreed that not having blood dioxin levels is a drawback, but said the findings are consistent with past research and general thinking about the chemical. “Almost all studies have implicated that men with Agent Orange (exposure) either have higher-grade prostate cancer or a more aggressive clinical course,” said Dr. Gregory Merrick, head of Wheeling Hospital's Schiffler Cancer Center in West Virginia, who also wasn't involved in the new research. But, he added, as long as men are getting into the VA system and getting regular evaluations and treatment for cancer, Agent Orange exposure “is not a death sentence by any means.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/vietnam-war-chemical-tied-to-aggressive-prostate-cancer-risk/

New fitness centers cater to aging baby boomers

Baby boomers, the generation that vowed to stay forever young, are getting older, designing senior-friendly gyms and becoming their own personal trainers. In exercise havens for the over-50 set, the cardio machines are typically low impact, the resistance training is mainly air-powered and some group fitness classes are taken sitting down. At Welcyon gyms, founded by husband-and-wife boomers Suzy and Tom Boerboom, the average age of members is 62. “The environment is really designed for those 50 and over,” said Suzy Boerboom. The couple created Welcyon, which has locations in Minnesota and South Dakota, in 2009. It has no tread-mills and no free weights and workouts are customized to members' levels of fitness. A smart card sets resistance, counts repetitions and adjusts workouts. An important attraction for many boomers: background music is a combination of '40s, '50s and '60s tunes played at a much lower volume than in traditional gyms. “It was something I could manage,” said 66-year-old Bill Zortman, one of an estimated 78 million baby boomers, defined as the group born between 1946 and 1964, who make up about 26 percent of the U.S. population, according to U.S. Census reports. His thrice-weekly workouts at a Welcyon in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, consists of riding a bicycle or using air-powered resistance machines to strengthen his legs, arms and back. “They make sure I'm not overdoing it,” Zortman said of the staff, who Boerboom said are often boomers themselves. The absence of clanging free weights also cuts down on the racket, Boerboom said, noting that many people over 50 prefer a quieter gym. Group fitness classes for boomers are also modified. “We're just beginning to develop a group fitness interval training program,” Boerboom said. “It will be four to six people and low impact.” The American Council on Exercise says many of their fitness professionals are baby boomers who specialize in working with older adults. “People in their early 60's are becoming personal trainers and group fitness instructors,” said Todd Galati, ACE's director of credentialing. But they are far from the majority, as the average age of ACE's 50,000 certified fitness professionals is 42, and more than 37 percent are 40. “Every year I talk to newly certified personal trainers, retired from their career in another field, who want to help people their age become more fit,” Galati said. A recent study published in JAMA Internal Medicine showed that a sample of baby boomers had higher rates of hypertension, diabetes, obesity and high cholesterol than their parents' generation. “There is a big bad myth about the boomer generation being more fit,” said Dr. Sheldon S. Zinberg, founder of Nifty after Fifty fitness centers for older adults. “In fact, the boomer generation is less fit than their parents were at same age.” The chain has locations in Arizona, California, Nevada, Texas, Virginia and New York. Its programs target muscle power, muscle strength, reaction time, balance and cognitive skills, he said. “At age 40 people lose 0.8 to 1 percent muscle mass each year. By age 60 this accelerates to 1.5 percent,” Zinberg said. At Nifty after Fifty, group fitness classes range from yoga and Zumba to seated volleyball and cane fu, a self-defense class in which participants use a cane. As with Welcyon, there are no tread-mills. “We used to use tread-mills, but we had people falling off,” Zinberg said. “We use recumbent stair steppers, among other exercisers.” He advises people to get fit in their 40s and 50s, “and when you do become older, enjoy a supervised, customized program.” Boerboom said Welcyon plans to open more gyms later this year. “There are over 70 million of us boomers,” she said, “and we have to take care of ourselves.”source : http://www.foxnews.com/health/2013/05/13/new-fitness-centers-cater-to-aging-baby-boomers/

Epigenomics of stem cells that mimic early human development charted

Now, in the first comprehensive analysis of epigenetic changes that occur during development, a multi-institutional group of scientists, including several from the Salk Institute for Biological Studies, has discovered how modifications in key epigenetic markers influence human embryonic stem cells as they differentiate into specialized cells in the body. The findings were published May 9 in Cell…