31/January/2022 Top Medical Bulletin

Here are todays top medical stories 

Certain snacks help reduce LDL cholesterol 

Cholesterol and snacks never is a good combination, snack lovers are often asked to cut down on eating their favorite foods and delicacies. The Journal of Nutrition brought out a trial that had a different approach to manage LDL levels in patients who refuse to take statin drugs.

A pleasure loved and acceptable snack-based solution formulated from cholesterol-lowering food ingredients could represent a therapeutic alternative for lowering cholesterol.

LDL cholesterol was reduced by 9% approximately, and Total Cholesterol was reduced by 6% approximately. A combination of cholesterol-lowering bioactive compounds can rapidly and meaningfully reduce LDL cholesterol in adult patients unable or unwilling to take statin drugs.

"Tadasana" Yoga to help in vasovagal syncope recurrences

Yoga is a well practiced  mind and spiritual therapy, vasovagal syncope is found in all age groups and yet there is no proper effective treatment. Tadasana or the mountain pose is a basic of standing postures that metabolically enhances body's function and heart health.

A recent study in JACC: Clinical Electrophysiology reported that three major findings, the first one being conventional therapy and conventional plus benefited patients with symptoms. Secondly, it caused fewer recurrences in patients and thirdly tadasana was well tolerated with no adverse events. Study concluded that tadasana increases venous return and lower limb muscle tone stabilizing breathing helping autonomic tone. 

Eating dinner close to bedtime may disturbs blood sugar control

Eating habits have changed with growing technologies and change in lifestyle, dinner close to bedtime, when melatonin levels are high, disturbs blood sugar control, especially in individuals with a genetic variant in the melatonin receptor MTNR1B, which has been linked to an elevated risk of type 2 diabetes.

In research published in Diabetes Care, a team led by investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Brigham and Women's Hospital (BWH) and the University of Murcia in Spain conducted a clinical trial to look for connections between these two factors.

"We decided to test if late eating that usually occurs with elevated melatonin levels results in disturbed blood sugar control," says senior author Richa Saxena, PhD, a principal investigator at the Center for Genomic Medicine at MGH. The high melatonin levels and food intake associated with late eating impairs blood sugar control in carriers of the MTNR1B genetic risk variant through a defect in insulin secretion.

For more information check out the full story on the link below:

Eating dinner close to bedtime may disturbs blood sugar control

Robot performs 1st laparoscopic surgery without human help

Even the slightest hand tremor or misplaced stitch can result in a leak that could have catastrophic complications for the patient. Connecting two ends of an intestine is arguably the most challenging step in gastrointestinal surgery, requiring a surgeon to suture with high accuracy and consistency.

Technology has advanced way beyond expectations, machineries are excelling in all fields.  A robot has performed laparoscopic surgery on the soft tissue of a pig without the guiding hand of a human - a significant step in robotics toward fully automated surgery on humans.

Designed by a team of Johns Hopkins University researchers, the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot (STAR) is described today in Science Robotics. The robot excelled at intestinal anastomosis, a procedure that requires a high level of repetitive motion and precision.

For more information check out the full story on the link below:

Robot performs 1st laparoscopic surgery without human help

Intense walking may reduce type 2 diabetes risk among 65 years and older 

Exercise is the key to most disease prevention, Walking regularly and at greater intensity may help prevent Type 2 diabetes among 70 and 80 year olds, according to one of the first studies measuring steps and pace among this population.

The more steps a person takes, and the more intense, the lower their risk for developing diabetes, report researchers in a study published in the Jan. 20, 2022 issue of Diabetes Care.

A key figure from study was that for every 1,000 steps per day, our results showed a 6% lower diabetes risk in this population. What that means is, if the average older adult were to take 2,000 more steps every day in addition to what they were already doing, they might expect a 12% reduction in diabetes risk

For more information check out the full story on the link below:

Intense walking may reduce type 2 diabetes risk among 65 years and older