The Today's News |
|
|
|
WASHINGTON: The United States of America (USA) has once again expressed reservations on Pak-Iran gas pipeline project.
Addressing a press conference here, spokeswoman for the State Department, Victoria Nuland said US was making efforts to help resolve energy crisis in Pakistan and to advance Mangla and Jamshoro power plants.
She said gas pipeline accord with Iran was against UN sanctions.
|
Breaking News
Showing posts with label Interesting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Interesting. Show all posts
Friday, 8 March 2013
Thursday, 25 October 2012
The Today's News |
|
|
|
LAHORE: World Mental Health Day will be observed on October 10 throughout Pakistan like elsewhere in the world.
This year's theme is "Depression: A Global Crisis."
In Lahore, Punjab Institute of Mental Health has arranged a seminar, which will be presided over by the Provincial Education Minister Mujtaba Shuja ur Rehman.
According to World Health Organisation, the day promotes open discussion of mental disorders, and investments in prevention, promotion and treatment services. Depression affects more than
350 million people of all ages, in all communities, and is a significant contributor to the global burden of disease. (APP)
|
The Today's News |
|
|
|
NEW YORK: Strokes are most common in old age, but new research suggests that lifestyle is putting young people increasingly at risk for stroke too.
In a study of two U.S. states, researchers found the rate of strokes among adults younger than 55 nearly doubled between 1993 and 2005.
Among whites ages 20 to 54, the rate rose from 26 strokes for every 100,000 people, to 48 per 100,000. And among African Americans, it climbed from 83 to 128 per 100,000.
The researchers said they could only speculate on possible explanations. One might be that doctors are detecting strokes in young people more often - both as a result of better brain-imaging technology and of being more vigilant for stroke in the young.
"But I really don't think that's the major reason," said lead researcher Dr. Brett M. Kissela, of the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.
"We're definitely seeing a higher incidence of risk factors for stroke now," he said in an interview.
Those risk factors include obesity, diabetes and high blood pressure. "And if you're developing them at the age of 20," Kissela said, "then you may have a stroke at a younger age, too."
A researcher not involved in the study agreed that better diagnosis and a real increase in young people's risk of stroke are both probably at work.
"Now MRI allows us to detect smaller strokes," said Dr. Mitchell S.V. Elkind, of Columbia University in New York, who co-wrote an editorial published with the study.
"Strokes come in all shapes and sizes," Elkind said. That includes subtle symptoms like mild degrees of blurry vision, weakness or numbness.
In the past, doctors might not have thought "stroke" when a relatively young person had symptoms like that. And MRI scans, which can detect subtle brain damage from stroke, were not used often back in the 1990s.
Kissela's team found that in 1993-1994, only 18 percent of all stroke patients in their study had an MRI. By 2005, that figure had risen to 58 percent.
"But that probably doesn't explain it all," Elkind said, referring to the rising incidence in young people.
"We know there's been an increase in obesity and diabetes," Elkind said. He added that drug abuse can also cause strokes, and this study did find an increasing rate of drug abuse among young stroke patients over time.
The results, which appear in the journal Neurology, are based on nearly 5,900 Ohio and Kentucky adults who suffered a first-time stroke between 1993 and 2005.
Over that time, 20- to 54-year-olds accounted for a growing proportion of strokes: from 13 percent in 1993, to almost 19 percent by 2005.
The study group came from only two U.S. states, but both Kissela and Elkind said the findings likely reflect what's happening nationally.
Indeed, a government study last year found a similar pattern nationwide: Between 1995 and 2008, the number of Americans ages 15 to 44 hospitalized for a stroke rose by more than one-third.
Kissela said the findings underscore the importance of a healthy lifestyle to stave off stroke risk factors in young people. He also said younger adults shouldn't see themselves as "invincible," and instead get to the doctor to see if they do, in fact, have health problems like high blood pressure or cholesterol.
"It's a small percentage of young people who have strokes," Kissela said, "but it can happen."
And, Elkind pointed out, since more-severe strokes may cause permanent disability, they could be particularly devastating to a younger person.
He advised that everyone, regardless of age, be aware of the potential symptoms of a stroke. Those include severe headache, a sudden loss of coordination or balance, sudden numbness or weakness (especially on one side of the body), and trouble seeing, speaking or understanding speech.
Most strokes happen when a blood clot blocks the flow of blood, and therefore oxygen, to the brain. If people get to the hospital quickly, doctors can treat them with clot-dissolving drugs that may be able to stop the stroke in progress. (Reuters)
|
The Today's News |
|
|
|
WASHINGTON: The death toll from an American meningitis outbreak linked to tainted medication has reached 12, according to US officials, who have documented more than 120 infections in 10 states.
Officials at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said as many as 13,000 people might have received doses of the contaminated steroid injection that has caused an outbreak of the rare fungal infection.
Among the hardest hit states are Tennessee with 39 cases, Michigan with 25, and Virginia with 24. Florida, Maryland and Minnesota, New Jersey, Indiana, North Carolina and Ohio also reported cases.
The Florida Department of Health reported the state's first death late Tuesday, saying a 70-year-old who died of the disease in July had been linked to the contaminated steroid injection.
Meningitis inflames protective membranes covering the brain and spinal cord.
The disease often goes undetected until it is too late because its flu-like symptoms can be mild at first.
Treatment requires a hospital stay and intravenous anti-fungal medications.
US health officials suspect a fungal contaminant in a sealed vial of the drug produced by the New England Compounding Center in Massachusetts caused the outbreak, and have launched a multi-state investigation.
The company that produced the steroids has issued a voluntary recall of all of its products and shut down all operations.
|
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
