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According to studies, getting an annual flu vaccination shot may help lessen the risk of stroke.

The study’s findings were published in the American Academy of Neurology’s medical publication.

“Studies have shown that getting the flu increases your risk of having a stroke, but research is still being collected on whether getting the flu vaccine shot can help protect against a stroke,” said study author Francisco J. de Abajo, MD, MPH, PhD, of the University of Alcala in Madrid, Spain.

“This observational study suggests that those who have a flu shot have a lower risk of stroke. To determine whether this is due to a protective effect of the vaccine itself or to other factors, more research is needed.”

The study focused on ischemic stroke, the most frequent kind of stroke caused by a stoppage of blood supply to the brain.

The study used a health care database in Spain to identify participants who were at least 40 years old and had their first stroke over a 14-year period. Each stroke patient was compared to five other persons of the same age and gender. There were 14,322 strokes and 71,610 persons who did not suffer a stroke.

The researchers next looked at whether patients had gotten the influenza vaccination at least 14 days before to the stroke, or before that period in the case of those who did not have a stroke.

Then the researchers looked at whether people had received the influenza vaccine at least 14 days before the stroke or before that same date for those who did not have a stroke.

A total of 41.4% of those who had a stroke had received the flu shot, compared to 40.5% of those who did not have a stroke. But the people who got the shot were more likely to be older and to have other conditions such as high blood pressure and high cholesterol that would make them more likely to have a stroke. Once researchers adjusted for those factors, they found that those who received a flu shot were 12% less likely to have a stroke than those who did not.

Pneumonia Shot

The researchers also looked at whether the pneumonia vaccine had any effect on the risk of stroke and found no protective effect.

“These results are yet another reason for people to get their yearly flu shot, especially if they are at an increased risk of stroke,” de Abajo said. “To be able to reduce your risk of stroke by taking such a simple action is very compelling.”

Because the study was observational, it cannot establish that getting vaccinated against the flu decreases the risk of stroke. It just demonstrates a relationship. Other variables that were not examined might have an impact on stroke risk.

Also Read: Hip fractures to increase by 2050? Researchers reveal data

According to a recent study done by scientists at the University of Hong Kong, osteoporotic hip fracture, which is already a dangerous and devastating condition for senior men and women throughout the world, is set to deteriorate as the population ages and gets more frail. According to the study, men and adults over the age of 85 are especially vulnerable to osteoporosis and fractures, highlighting the need for more research, prevention, and treatment.

Associate Professor Ching-lung Cheung of the University of Hong Kong’s Department of Pharmacology and Pharmacy presented the findings today at the annual conference of the American Society of Bone and Mineral Research in Austin, Texas.

The study examined data from 19 countries for individuals aged 50 and over who sustained hip fractures between 2005 and 2018. It was revealed that an overall increase in the number of hip fractures was predicted in 18 of the 19 nations studied. Hip fracture rates were forecasted for 2030 and 2050 using World Bank population estimates.

Hip fracture rates are expected to more than double globally by 2050, with males having a greater proportionate rise than women.

The study identified many probable explanations of the gender discrepancy. Although the frequency of hip fractures dropped in the majority of countries throughout the study period, the amount of the reduction was lower in men. Men are living longer lives as a result of advancements in healthcare, personal cleanliness, food, and other areas. According to the United Nations, the average life expectancy for males would be over 75 years by 2050, which coincides to the age range where this study discovered a significant risk of hip fracture.

As a result, researchers estimate an increase in the number of men who are at high risk of hip fracture.

Similarly, osteoporosis in males has long gone undetected and untreated, according to Dr. Cheung. Our research also found that males are 30% to 67% less likely than women to take anti-osteoporosis medications following a hip fracture, he said. As a result, more emphasis should be made on the prevention and treatment of men’s hip fractures.

Previous research on the occurrence of hip fractures relied on dated data from various study approaches and historical periods. This study looked at the most recent secular trends in hip fracture incidence, mortality, and post-fracture pharmacological therapy in 19 different countries.

To deliver comparable data across all sites, a standard protocol and data model were used. The annual incidence of hip fracture, death, and rates of pharmacological therapy within a year were computed using age- and sex-standardized data.

The researchers discovered significant variation among the 19 countries they looked at using descriptive analyses of patient-level healthcare data.

Hip fracture incidence was calculated to be 180 per 100,000 people overall, controlling for age and sex (Women 236; Men 118). However, the average annual change in the incidence of hip fractures ranged from -2.8% to +2.1%. The countries with the largest reductions in fractures were Hong Kong (2.4%), Singapore (2.8%), and Denmark (2.8%).

The Netherlands (+2.1%) and South Korea (+1.2%) saw the largest gains. One-year all-cause mortality ranged from 14.4% to 28.3%, while mortality trends ranged from 5.3% to +18.4% annually, with Australia (5.3%), the Netherlands (4.6%), and Singapore (4.3%) recording the highest declines. 11.5% to 50.3% of hip fracture patients took an anti-osteoporosis drug within a year of the fracture, with yearly trends ranging from 9.6% to +12.7% and dropping in 6 of 15 locations.

Further in-depth investigation is needed to determine the causes of the observed variation among nations, according to co-author and research assistant professor Chor Wing Sing. Better osteoporosis therapy and post-fracture care, according to the expert, may be the cause of some countries’ relatively large hip fracture decreases. Better fall-prevention initiatives and more precise clinical care standards undoubtedly contributed to the improvement.

A rise in bone mineral density, or BMD, as a result of people’s increased awareness of bone health, according to Dr. Sing, may also have been helpful. She referenced a study from Hong Kong, where there had been one of the highest decreases in hip fractures, which shown that women over 50 had started getting more active and undertaking more weight-bearing activity, which had led to a considerable long-term increase in BMD.

Impact of ageing on hip fractures

The main takeaway from the new study, according to its authors, is that the impact of the ageing population cannot be completely offset by the decrease in hip fractures that has occurred in many nations in recent years. Hip fractures are anticipated to become more common. However, post-fracture care is still insufficient in many nations.

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While post-fracture care in this demographic is typically conservative, the incidence of hip fracture in those over 85 (the “oldest old”) continues to be more than double that of other age groups.

A stronger and more coordinated effort by healthcare professionals, patients, and caregivers will be necessary to prevent hip fractures, bridge the treatment gap, and improve post-fracture care, particularly in males and the elderly. There is an urgent need for this all around the world.

India recorded 5,221 new Covid-19 cases in the last 24 hours, informed the Ministry of Health and Family Affairs on Monday.

The active caseload currently stands at 47,176. Active cases now constitute 0.11 per cent of the country’s total positive cases. India saw 5,975 recoveries in the last 24 hours and the total recoveries have increased to 4,39,25,239. The recovery rate is at 98.71 per cent.

The daily positivity rate for Covid-19 infection stood at 2.82 percent and the weekly positivity rate is at 1.72 per cent.

According to the ministry, 88.95 crore total Tests have been conducted so far and 1,84,965 tests conducted in the last 24 hours.

Covid vaccines

In the last 24 hours, the country administered 30,76,305 vaccine doses.

215.26 crore Total Vaccine doses (94.53 cr Second Dose and 18.34 cr Precaution Dose) have been administered so far under Nationwide Vaccination Drive.

To overcome the spread of infection, the Union Government is committed to accelerating the pace and expanding the scope of COVID-19 vaccination throughout the country.

The nationwide COVID-19 vaccination started on January 16, 2021. The new phase of universalization of COVID-19 vaccination commenced on June 21, 2021.

The vaccination drive has been ramped up through the availability of more vaccines, and advanced visibility of vaccine availability to States and UTs for enabling better planning by them and streamlining the vaccine supply chain.

As part of the nationwide vaccination drive, the Government of India has been supporting the States and UTs by providing them with COVID Vaccines free of cost.

In the new phase of the universalization of the COVID-19 vaccination drive, the Union Government will procure and supply (free of cost) 75 percent of the vaccines being produced by the vaccine manufacturers in the country to States and UTs.

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A study of 24 very sick individuals hospitalised with COVID-19 found that an investigational dendrimer nanoparticle drug named OP-101 dramatically reduced the probability of mortality and the requirement for a ventilator.

The small clinical trial, which was funded by Ashvattha Therapeutics, a Johns Hopkins startup that manufactures the drug, discovered that patients who received the drug had a greater than fourfold higher rate of decrease in biomarkers of inflammation and brain injury circulating in their blood compared to patients who received a placebo.

A report on the study was published July 20 in Science Translational Medicine.

“OP-101 could be a potent therapy for decreasing hyperinflammation and promoting repair in people with severe COVID, showing significant clinical benefit without the associated side effects typically seen with some other treatments,” says Sujatha Kannan, M.B.B.S., professor of anesthesiology and critical care medicine and pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Kannan and her husband, Kannan Rangaramanujam, Ph.D, professor of ophthalmology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine, developed OP-101 by attaching a powerful antioxidant/anti-inflammatory drug known as n-acetyl cysteine (NAC) to a nanoparticle that is 100,000 times smaller than the thickness of a sheet of paper.

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Each nanoparticle has a number of molecules of the drug attached to it, and can deliver the drug specifically to inflammatory cells called macrophages. The dendrimer nanoparticle delivers the drug to only those macrophages involved in inflammation at the site of injury. Currently, NAC is used in a different form to treat acetaminophen poisoning and for thinning mucus secretions in airways.

The pair of researchers are co-inventors on patents related to the drug’s discovery, and founded a biotechnology company, Ashvattha Therapeutics Inc., based in California, to develop the drug and fund clinical trials. The company licenses the technology through Johns Hopkins Technology Ventures.

The researchers caution that larger clinical trials of OP-101 must be completed, and that OP-101 should be used to treat COVID-19 only in a clinical trial or, for other medical needs, with the supervision of a physician.

For the study, researchers recruited 24 patients between the ages of 43 and 86, mostly male (five Black, 15 Hispanic and four non-Hispanic white) with severe COVID-19 admitted to hospitals between August 2020 and May 2021 within five medical systems located in five states in the U.S., including The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Patients with signs of severe COVID-19 who were on mechanical ventilation or on oxygen through high-flow nasal cannula were eligible to be enrolled in the study. The majority of patients included in the study were in the intensive care unit. Six patients received a single intravenous 2 mg/kg dose of OP-101; six received a 4 mg/kg dose; five received an 8 mg/kg dose and seven received a saline placebo within 24 hours of enrollment.

All 24 patients also received standard care for COVID-19, including corticosteroids used to suppress inflammation and the antiviral drug remdesivir.

The investigators were not aware which patients received placebo or OP-101 until the end of the study.

At the conclusion of the trial, the researchers found that OP-101, at a dosage of either 4 mg/kg or 8 mg/kg, was sixfold better at reducing the inflammation marker C-reactive protein, and fourfold to tenfold better at reducing biomarkers of neurologic injury such as neurofilament light and glial fibrillary acidic protein.

The risk of death or needing a ventilator at 30 and 60 days after treatment was 71% for patients who received the placebo and 18% for those receiving OP-101.

At 60 days after receiving either OP-101 or the placebo, 3 of 7 patients who received the placebo and 14 of 17 patients who received any of the three doses of OP-101 had survived.

OP-101 was not associated with any adverse events, and was well tolerated in this critically ill population. “It is possible that OP-101 may also be useful in treating the neurologic, cardiac and respiratory symptoms associated with long COVID, since a proportion of patients with long COVID have persistent inflammation,” says Rangaramanujam Kannan.

The researchers are planning larger clinical trials of OP-101.

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When kidney stones are surgically removed from patients, little stones that do not appear to be causing problems are commonly left behind. According to a recent randomised controlled study, leaving these asymptomatic stones left significantly increases the probability of a patient developing a recurrence in the five years that follow.

The study’s findings were published in the journal ‘New England Journal of Medicine.’ Stones less than 6mm in diameter that are not the primary target of a procedure are generally not removed but are monitored because “secondary” stones have a high rate of successful passage if they move into the ureter, according to lead author Dr Mathew Sorensen, a urologist at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

“Before this study, the clinical views were pretty mixed on whether some of these stones should be treated,” he said. “Most clinicians would decide, based on the size of the kidney stone, whether it hit the bar for treatment, and if it did not, you would often ignore the little stones.”

The investigators studied 75 patients who were treated at multiple institutions over a span from 2015 to 2021. About half of the patients had only their large primary stone treated, while the others had primary and secondary kidney stones removed. Relapse was defined as having to go to the emergency room or undergo an additional procedure due to a recurrence or if a follow-up CT scan showed that the secondary stones grew.

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Removal of the secondary stones reduced the relapse rate by 82 per cent, the researchers found, leading the authors to recommend that smaller stones should not be left behind.

“Results of our trial support the removal of small asymptomatic kidney stones at the time of surgery with a larger stone,” their paper concluded. The authors noted that while the removal of smaller stones could add to the procedure’s duration and cost, those costs would likely be less than those associated with a patient’s repeat procedure or visit to the emergency room.

Some patients in the study visited the emergency department multiple times and then required surgery, the report noted.
Sorensen said he would share the study results with colleagues with the hope of changing their sensibility toward smaller stones. Further study is needed to determine whether treatment of small kidney stones alone is justified, as technology improves and the costs and risks of an intervention diminish, he said.

“I think we have proven through this rigorous study that removal of the small asymptomatic stones is beneficial when feasible and in patients that are candidates to have all their stones treated in one procedure,” he noted. “Leaving the stones behind risks trouble in the future.”

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Vegetarians had a 33% greater risk of hip fracture than meat eaters, according to a study of nearly 26,000 middle-aged UK women.

University of Leeds research, published in the journal BMC Medicine, investigated the risk of hip fracture in occasional meat-eaters; pescatarians, people who eat fish but not meat; and vegetarians compared to regular meat-eaters. Among 26,318 women, 822 hip fracture cases were observed over roughly 20 years – that represented just over 3% of the sample population. After adjustment for factors such as smoking and age, vegetarians were the only diet group with an elevated risk of hip fracture.

This is one of only a few studies that examine the risk of hip fracture in vegetarians and meat eaters using hospital data to confirm the occurrence of hip fracture.

More investigation into the specific explanations of why vegetarians were at a higher risk of hip fracture is needed, according to the experts.

Vegetarian diets can be ‘healthy or unhealthy’

Study lead author James Webster, a doctoral researcher from the School of Food Science and Nutrition at Leeds, said: “Our study highlights potential concerns regarding risk of hip fracture in women who have a vegetarian diet. However, it is not warning people to abandon vegetarian diets. As with any diet, it is important to understand personal circumstances and what nutrients are needed for a balanced healthy lifestyle.

“Vegetarian diets can vary widely from person to person and can be healthy or unhealthy, just like diets that include animal products.

“However, it is concerning that vegetarian diets often have lower intakes of nutrients that are linked with bone and muscle health. These types of nutrients generally are more abundant in meat and other animal products than in plants, such as protein, calcium, and other micronutrients.

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“Low intake of these nutrients can lead to lower bone mineral density and muscle mass, which can make you more susceptible to hip fracture risk. This makes it especially important for further research to better understand factors driving the increased risk in vegetarians, whether it be particular nutrient deficiencies or weight management, so that we can help people to make healthy choices.”

Plant-based diets growing in popularity

Vegetarian diets have gained popularity in recent years, with a 2021 YouGov survey putting the size of the UK vegetarian population at roughly 5-7%. It is often perceived as a healthier dietary option, with previous evidence that shows a vegetarian diet can reduce the risks of several chronic diseases, including diabetes, heart disease, and cancer compared to omnivorous diets.

There is also a worldwide call for reducing the consumption of animal products in an effort to tackle climate change.
Understanding hip fracture risk in vegetarians is therefore becoming increasingly important to public health.

Study co-author Professor Janet Cade, leader of the Nutritional Epidemiology Group in the School of Food Science and Nutrition at Leeds, said: “Hip fracture is a global health issue with high economic costs that causes loss of independence, reduces quality of life, and increases risk of other health issues.

“Plant-based diets have been linked with poor bone health, but there has been a lack of evidence on the links to hip fracture risk. This study is an important step in understanding the potential risk plant-based diets could present over the long-term and what can be done to mitigate those risks.”

The team used data from the UK Women’s Cohort Study to investigate possible links between diet and hip fracture risk. The national cohort of middle-aged women was established at the University of Leeds to explore links between diet and chronic disease, encompassing a wide range of different eating patterns. Dietary information was collected using a food frequency questionnaire and was validated using a 4-day food diary in a subsample of women.

At the time they were recruited into the cohort study, the women ranged in age from 35 to 69 years.

Effect of low BMI

The research team found that the average BMI among vegetarians was slightly lower than the average among the regular meat eaters. Previous research has shown a link between low BMI and a high risk of hip fracture.

Lower BMI can indicate people are underweight, which can mean poorer bone and muscle health, and higher risk of hip fracture. Further investigation is needed to determine if low BMI is the reason for the observed higher risk in vegetarians.

Study co-author, Dr Darren Greenwood, a biostatistician in the School of Medicine at Leeds, said: “This study is just part of the wider picture of diet and healthy bones and muscles in older age.

“Further research is needed to confirm whether there could be similar results in men, to explore the role of body weight, and to identify the reasons for different outcomes in vegetarians and meat-eaters.”

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Researchers have discovered fresh evidence to explain why intensive thinking causes people to feel mentally weary rather than asleep.

Their findings, published in Current Biology, reveal that when hard cognitive labour is performed for several hours, potentially hazardous wastes accumulate in the prefrontal cortex of the brain. As cognitive weariness sets in, this modifies your influence over decisions, causing you to gravitate toward low-cost activities that require little effort or waiting, according to the study.

“Influential theories suggested that fatigue is a sort of illusion cooked up by the brain to make us stop whatever we are doing and turn to a more gratifying activity,” says Mathias Pessiglione of Pitie-Salpetriere University in Paris, France. “But our findings show that cognitive work results in a true functional alteration–accumulation of noxious substances–so fatigue would indeed be a signal that makes us stop working but for a different purpose: to preserve the integrity of brain functioning.”

Pessiglione and colleagues including the first author of the study Antonius Wiehler wanted to understand what mental fatigue really is. While machines can compute continuously, the brain can’t. They wanted to find out why. They suspected the reason had to do with the need to recycle potentially toxic substances that arise from neural activity.

To look for evidence of this, they used magnetic resonance spectroscopy (MRS) to monitor brain chemistry over the course of a workday. They looked at two groups of people: those who needed to think hard and those who had relatively easier cognitive tasks.

They saw signs of fatigue, including reduced pupil dilation, only in the group doing hard work. Those in that group also showed in their choices a shift toward options proposing rewards at short delay with little effort. Critically, they also had higher levels of glutamate in synapses of the brain’s prefrontal cortex.

Together with earlier evidence, the authors say it supports the notion that glutamate accumulation makes further activation of the prefrontal cortex more costly, such that cognitive control is more difficult after a mentally tough workday.

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So, is there some way around this limitation of our brain’s ability to think hard?

“Not really, I’m afraid,” Pessiglione said. “I would employ good old recipes: rest and sleep! There is good evidence that glutamate is eliminated from synapses during sleep.”

Other practical implications may exist. Monitoring prefrontal metabolites, for example, might aid in the detection of severe mental exhaustion, according to the researchers. Such a skill may aid in adjusting work schedules to minimise burnout. He also suggests that individuals avoid making major judgments while they are weary.

They intend to understand more about why the prefrontal brain appears to be more vulnerable to glutamate buildup and tiredness in future investigations. They’re also keen to see if the same tiredness signals in the brain might predict recovery from illnesses like depression or cancer.

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