StemCell Therapy

The biggest game of the season looms this weekend for the Dallas Cowboys. But as they get ready to travel north and east to face the New England Patriots, many Cowboys players have been down and out with the flu.

Temperatures are expected to be in the low 40s at kickoff with rain and snow in the forecast. Some Cowboys players are getting past the flu, some are in the beginning stages and quarterback Dak Prescott is taking preventative medications, according to Calvin Watkins, beat writer for The Dallas Morning News.

"Flu bug has swept the Cowboys this week," Watkins tweeted. "Joe Thomas and Ben Bloom have it. Justin March has a respiratory infection, Jordan Lewis and Xavier Woods just recovered from it. Cowboys gave Dak Prescott some medicine as a precaution for any issues."

The Dallas Cowboys are 6-4 on the season, but none of their wins have come against teams with a winning record. Only the Philadelphia Eagles are among the teams they have beaten that don't have a losing record, as they are 5-5.

The Patriots are 9-1 and hold the best record in the AFC. Led by quarterback Tom brady, the Patriots have won 21-consecutive games in Foxborough, Massachusetts.

With six games remaining in regular season and holding just a one-game lead over the Eagles, every game is importantand beating the Patriots would give Dallas not only a much-needed win to stay ahead, but beating New England would likely give them a push through the final stretch toward the playoffs.

"I just think it's important to lock in on the task at hand every week. The best teams are able to do that," Cowboys coach Jason Garrett said in another Morning News report. "It's one day of preparation for that week's ballgame. That's what we try to instill around here. We don't do a lot of reflecting during the year on signature wins or this kind of a win or that kind of a win."

The schedule does not get easier for the Cowboys after their trip to New England. They host a 7-3 Buffalo Bills squad on Thanksgiving Day, and then travel to face the 4-6 Chicago Bears that allow just 17 points a game.

The Cowboys finish the last three regular-season games with the Los Angeles Rams (6-4), who was last year's NFC champion, at Philadelphia for perhaps the NFC East title on the line, and the Washington Redskins at home.

Then there's Dallas quarterback Dak Prescott, having his best season so far as a professional. Prescott has passed for 3,221 yards and 21 touchdowns in 10 games, including 444 yards last week against the Lions. He is on ace to surpass the 5,000-yard mark this season, which has never been done in Dallas' illustrious history.

Prescott has been given the flu preventative medication before the upcoming New England trip. Now is time for the travel, time change and temperature drop before kickoff.

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Dallas Cowboys Battle the Flu Ahead of Their Biggest Game of the Year in Chilly New England - Newsweek

A look at the Radio City Rockettes training room with Elaine Winslow-Redmond, Director of Athletic Training and Wellness for the Rockettes, and Dr. Melody Hrubes of Rothman Orthopaedi, the Rockettes' new medical director, Nov. 18, 2019 at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan. Tania Savayan, tsavayan@lohud.com

On a Monday afternoon, just days before opening night, Emily King, 22, a Radio City Rockette, dropped by an office in Radio City Music Hall.

King, who is in her second season as one of the famed dancers, came to see Dr. MelodyHrubes, the new medical director for the Rockettes, andElaine Winslow-Redmond,the director of athletic training, for a consultation.

It just provides a lot of security for us as performers," King said. "We know that if anything goes wrong, like they have our back and they are going to provide help where it's necessary.

November 6, 2019: Dress rehearsal for the Radio City Christmas Spectacular starring the Radio City Rockettes.(Photo: Zack Lane, Zack Lane/MSG Photos)

King,who is from Michigan and has a BFA in Commercial Dance from Pace University,is one of 80Rockettesknown for their signature eye-high kicks and a precisiondance technique that requires both artistry and athleticism.

Hrubes and Winslow-Redmond make surethe Rockettes are in top shape as they ascend the Radio City Music Hall stage multiple times a day to perform the Christmas Spectacular.

Dr. Melody Hrubes of Rothman Orthopaedic Institute, left, the Radio City Rockettes' new medical director, and Elaine Winslow-Redmond, Director of Athletic Training and Wellness for the Rockettes, give Rockette Emily King a pre-screening Nov. 18, 2019 at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan.(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

While they range in height from 56 to 510 , the dancers succeed in creating the illusion that they are kicking at the same height through a combination of formation (tallest woman in the center) and technique.

They perform up to 16 times a week and can kick up to 650 times a day. Each 90-minute performance requires 160 kicks in high heels.Theunforgiving routine can put considerable strain on their bodies.

For Hrubes, that means preventing injuries before they happen.

Elaine Winslow-Redmond, Director of Athletic Training and Wellness for the Radio City Rockettes, left, talks about the program as Dr. Melody Hrubes of Rothman Orthopaedic Institute, the Rockettes' new medical director, looks on Nov. 18, 2019 at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan.(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

What is so interesting to me about dance is that it's choreographed, so there's a lot of biomechanical and overuse injuries that happen, said Hrubes, who practices with RothmanOrthopedic Institute, which opened a location in Harrison last month and is the official provider of orthopedic services to the Rockettes.

That's why we're so interested in how to prevent that, since they're doing the same thing over and over again.

October 22, 2019: The Radio City Rockettes rehearse for the Christmas Spectacular at the St. Paul the Apostle Church in New York City.(Photo: Carl Scheffel, Carl Scheffel/MSG Photos)

A lot of what she sees with the Rockettes also applies to other athletessaid Hrubes, a specialist in sport medicine who has previously worked as a team physician for the United States Soccer Federation and with United States Gymnastics.

A lot of young athletes aren't taught to listen to their bodies;they think that if there's no pain, theres no gain. If I'm hurting, that means I'm just working hard enough, said Hrubes, talking about injury prevention. And actually pain is your body's way of saying something is wrong. So learning the difference between soreness and pain is super valuable because then they could actually learn to listen to their bodies.

Dr. Melody Hrubes of Rothman Orthopaedic Institute, left, the Radio City Rockettes' new medical director, and Elaine Winslow-Redmond, Director of Athletic Training and Wellness for the Rockettes, give Rockette Emily King a pre-screening Nov. 18, 2019 at Radio City Music Hall in Manhattan.(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

That philosophy dovetailswith what Buchanan resident Winslow-Redmond has sought to do with the Rockettes since 2005.

A former Rockette who performed for 11 seasonsfrom 1994-2005,Winslow-Redmond said she was frustrated when, in her first season,she sought treatment for a shin splint a kind of stress fractureand found doctors who didnt fully understand what she did.

They would say things like, 'there's no hopping in tap dancing.' And I thought to myself, I don't think they understand what I do if they don't think I'm hopping while I'm tap dancing, she said."They didn't understand that I needed to stay in the show. I couldn't like just take a few weeks off.

November 7, 2018: Dress rehearsal for the upcoming Radio City Christmas Spectacular at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.(Photo: Carl Scheffel, Carl Scheffel/MSG Photos)

She was eventually helped byan athletic trainerwho taught Winslow-Redmond how to prevent injury through her next 10 seasons. And she learned firsthand how important it is to focus on recovery after a show.

So I had great longevity and I was able to dance injury free for the rest of my seasons, she said.

Winslow-Redmond said she was bothered by the fact that the Rockettes didnt have an in-house trainer or doctor. So, whilecontinuing to dance as a Rockette, Winslow-Redmond, who hasa BFA in dance, took advantage of a tuition assistance program available to Rockettes to transition to other careers.

She got masters in physiology and nutrition at Columbia University and eventually became the Rockettes' trainer in 2005.

As part of herthesis, she analyzed five years worth of Rockette injury reports andshowed that the majoritywere preventable overuse injuries.

"Overall the choreography has gotten more difficult," she said. "So as we're challenging the Rockettes and they're rising to a higher level, their injuries are decreasing. Theres been a 78% decrease in injury. So that's the impact.

Her advice for current and aspiring dancers?

They should pair their dance training to incorporate a strength element so that they strengthen the muscles that tend to be weak on dancers.

She also emphasizes recovery. I push hard on recovery because I really understand the impact of many shows in one week," she said. Understanding the level of fatigue that I experienced and being able to teach them the necessary steps on how to recover and that pushing through is not always the way to go.

Rockette Emily King in the athletic training and wellness room at Radio City Music Hall Nov. 18, 2019 in Manhattan.(Photo: Tania Savayan/The Journal News)

For Rockette Emily King, working with Winslow-Redmond and Hrubeshas been helpful. Just in a preventative sense, the pre-screening is so helpful," she said. "They give us exercises to help prevent injuries that are specific to us, like things that we are susceptible to, which is incredible.

Dr. Hrubes and Winslow-Redmond offered advice for athletes on preventing injury:

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Swapna Venugopal Ramaswamy covers women and power for the USA Today Network Northeast. Write to her at svenugop@lohud.com

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Keeping the Radio City Rockettes on their toes, with help from Westchester - Lohud

One night in her Nashville apartment, Bre Banks read a comment from her boyfriend on Facebook. They were in a shaky spell, and his words seemed proof she would lose him. She put her laptop down on the couch and headed to the bedroom to cry. My legs seized up, and I fell, she recalled. With her knees and forehead pressing into the carpet, she heard a voice that said, Slit your wrists, slit your wrists. She saw herself in the bathtub with the blood flowing. She was terrified that if she moved she would die.

Banks, then 25, was a disciplined graduate student with a job and close friends and had no psychiatric history. I had never considered suicide an option, she says. But for the next three days, she couldnt sleep while the voice and disturbing images persisted. After seeing a therapist, she decided to teach herself techniques from dialectical behavior therapy, one of the few treatments shown to reduce suicidality. The voices and images came back over the next few months, but eventually faded. Eight years later, Banks now evaluates suicide prevention programs across Tennessee as a manager at the large mental health provider Centerstones research institute, and she and the same boyfriend just celebrated their 10th anniversary.

In the public imagination, suicide is often understood as the end of a torturous decline caused by depression or another mental illness. But clinicians and researchers know that suicidal crises frequently come on rapidly, escalating from impulse to action within a day, hours, or just minutes. Many also point to the fact that they may strike people like Banks, who are otherwise in good mental health.

That understanding is one reason a movement is building to define suicidality as a condition in its own right. Most recently, researchers from Mount Sinai Beth Israel and Florida State University have agreed to collaborate on a joint proposal for a new diagnosis in the next Diagnostic Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), a handbook published by the American Psychiatric Association. The criteria include familiar symptoms of depression, but these symptoms occur in an acute state that is not currently obvious to clinicians. Proponents say it could spur more research and make it easier for suicidal patients to get the care they need.

Suicide rates have been rising sharply since 1999, figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show. More than half of those who take their lives do not have a known mental health condition. There is also no established way to pinpoint when a patient is in immediate danger. You cannot rely on people telling you when they are or are not suicidal, said Igor Galynker, a professor of psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine in New York.Some have expressed skepticism. Far too many diagnoses in psychiatry come and go, said George Makari, a Weill Cornell Medicine psychiatrist and historian of psychiatry. The idea that suicidality may not be a symptom of something else a mood or personality disorder is novel. If theyre making the claim that weve been seeing this upside down for a long time, he said, thats fascinating.

Research backs that up: A 2019meta-analysisof 71 studies conducted around the globe found that about 60 percent of people who died by suicide had denied having suicidal thoughts when asked by a psychiatrist or general practitioner. Here in the U.S., a2016 studyexamined data from four health systems that use standardized questionnaires in primary care and specialty clinics. (The questionnaires ask whether the patient has experienced thoughts that you would be better off dead or of hurting yourself in some way.) Although the answers did predict future suicide attempts to some extent, there were plenty of false negatives. Thirty-nine percent of the suicide attempts and 36 percent of the suicide deaths occurred among patients who had responded not at all to the key question. In another study, about a quarter of the suicide attempts were made by people who reported zero suicidal thoughts.

Its easy to assume they were lying, but thats not quite true. Greg Simon, a psychiatrist and investigator at Kaiser Permanente Washington in Seattle, who led the 2016 study, was involved in a follow-up study based on interviews with 26 people who had made attempts after denying any suicidal thoughts on the standard questionnaire. The interviews revealed that some people had lied, he said. But they also revealed people who had provided aspirational responses they weretryingnot to have suicidal thoughts and people who had experienced no suicidal thinking whatsoever. (Among the latter group, alcohol often factored into their attempts.) None of them woke up that morning with a plan to die that day.

For his part, Galynker determined long ago after he lost a patient who took him by surprise that he couldnt rely on patient reports. In 2007, he set out to develop a set of symptoms that would help pinpoint imminent suicide even if the patient didnt report suicidal thinking. We hypothesized that the pre-suicidal state leading to suicidal action was short-lived, kind of like pulling a gun trigger, he said. In 2009, he called it suicide trigger state. Over dozens of research papers, he explored various symptoms as predictors, developing checklists and then testing how well they predicted future behavior. While these checklists are still new, they are being used to screen for suicidal risk among high school students in Moscow, Russia, and among hospital patients in Chicago.

In 2017, Galynker coined the termsuicide crisis syndrome. People with this syndrome feel trapped, though they might not think of death per se. They may be flooded with misery and unable to think clearly. Certain thoughts, like Banks images and voices, return repeatedly, no matter how much they are resisted. They may experience mood swings or overwhelming emotional pain.

At Florida State University, Thomas Joiner, the author of several books on suicide and the editor of a suicide journal, outlined his own criteria for a quick-onset suicide crisis, which he calls acute suicidal affective disturbance. This describes rapidly escalating plans for suicide over hours or days faster than clinicians may expect. The key difference is that Joiner includes reports of suicidal thinking as an essential criterion.

The pair teamed up more than two years ago when the first paper describing both of their diagnoses appeared. Together, the two researchers envision a new DSM suicide diagnosis with two sub-types, one with thoughts of suicide, and one without. Before this diagnosis is approved for the DSM, however, the researchers may need to show more conclusively that the phenomenon they describe isnt a symptom of depression or another mental illness, and that their methods of screening for it are effective.

Psychiatrist Michael First at Columbia University, who presided over earlier revisions of the DSM, sees a suicide-specific diagnosis as an appealing idea. If the melding of Galynkers and Joiners formulations worked well and proved to be accurate, First said, then it would clearly be very useful to have it.

Clinicianscurrently struggle with little guidance on how to identify imminent risk or make sense of suicides that seem to come out of the blue.

Nearly once a week, attending psychiatrist Dmitriy Gekhman at Mount Sinai Beth Israel sees a patient who has attempted suicide and is hard to classify, though he must find a relevant code for each patients chart. You kind of go through the history and everything, and theyre not depressed. They dont meet the criteria for depression, they dont meet criteria for bipolar disorder, and they dont have a personality disorder, he said. We just discharged somebody this week who that happened to, and we still have somebody on the unit now.

If a diagnosis based on Galynkers and Joiners research were put in place, it would put the patients doctors on notice that the patient is a risk for suicide with rapid onset. Over time, its possible that clinicians and even teachers and parents would become better at seeing the signs. The diagnosis, Joiner explained, is a warning sign for the future.

Detroits Henry Ford Health System provides a glimpse of how suicide prevention might evolve. At Henry Ford, suicide is considered its own mental health category, not primarily a symptom of depression. In 2002, the health system began a series of initiatives, and reduced patient suicide rates a dramatic 80 percent over the next seven years.

The staff at Henry Ford discovered that from 2000 to 2010, only half of patients who died by suicide had received a mental health diagnosis, closely matching current national statistics. This could be undiagnosed illness, but I think a lot of people dont meet the criteria, said Brian Ahmedani, who directs the health systems Center for Health Policy & Health Services Research.

Henry Ford screens everyone with questionnaires asking about suicidal thoughts, a practice the Joint Commission, which certifies health care organizations, started recommending in 2016. But in its behavioral health units, the risk assessment focuses on triggers, such as a job loss. Ahmedani says that patients in the highest risk percentile usually have a number of triggers: chronic pain, opioid use, and insomnia, for example. Because assessing the many possible combinations can be difficult, Henry Ford uses artificial intelligence to analyze electronic medical records, helping clinicians who may not have time to catch a perfect storm before its already too late. Veterans are a high-risk group, so the Veterans Affairs (VA) has begun using these algorithms too.

Currently, suicidal people are often prescribed antidepressants. However, other than lithium, most often used to treat people with bipolar disorder, theres little evidence that medication prevents suicide, Ahmedani observed. New VA clinical guidelines alsosupportshort-term infusions of a drug calledketamine.

Henry Ford offers treatments specific to suicide: identifying triggers and coping mechanisms, for example. It also offers cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavior therapy, the treatment that helped Banks. Patients are encouraged to develop a safety plan that includes removing guns or painkillers from the home, and an idea of who they might call under duress.

David Covington, a suicide prevention activist, said, we used to think that if you treat addiction, the mental health will get better, and the other side thought if you treat mental health, the addiction will get better. Now we say you have to treat both. Similarly, a person might need treatment for both suicide and depression.

The new diagnosis, more fundamentally, could change who we think might be driven to the extreme of a suicide attempt. Psychiatrists still refer to suicide attempts with a short buildup as impulsive, but Joiners team disputes that these are impulsive people. Megan Rogers, a Ph.D. candidate who works with Joiner, sees outpatients at the university clinic. She recalls one who within hours would go from no risk to high risk but had what she describes as a conscientious and vigilant, rather than impulsive, personality.

Still, some question whether a new diagnosis would actually benefit patients. For one thing, it isnt clear how such a diagnosis would influence treatment or whether it would save lives. There is simply no value in a prediction that cannot lead to an effective preventative measure, writes psychiatrist Matthew Large in a2018 paperevaluating suicide assessment approaches generally. More people could land in hospital psychiatric care, or be kept longer than they desire, he said. And while it is generally assumed that hospitalization can prevent suicide, this has never been demonstrated empirically. In fact, suicide rates are high among recently discharged patients and some say hospitalization can make things worse.

Galynker agrees that hospitalization is not necessarily the answer and is looking at new treatment methods. In the meantime, the diagnosis might communicate the higher risk to insurance companies, explained Lisa Cohen, a professor of psychiatry at Icahn School of Medicine and co-author with Galynker, giving patients better access to treatment options.

Psychiatrists who make decisions about hospitalization say they would appreciate more science to guide them. It would be incredibly helpful to have a very clear indication that someone is at higher risk, observed Julie Holland, who once presided over a psychiatric emergency room at Bellevue Hospital in New York. A close look at the buildup to a crisis would be invaluable. We do that when somebodys heart stops, or when somebodys heart is imminently stopping, said Chicago psychiatrist Leo Weinstein, who teaches at Northwestern University. Making the unstable state a diagnostic entity in its own right, like ventricular fibrillation or congestive heart failure, he says, is crucially important.

Temma Ehrenfeld is a writer and ghostwriter in New York drawn to philosophy and psychiatry. Her most recent book is Morgan: The Wizard of Kew Gardens. Follow her on Twitter @temmaehrenfeld

A version of this article was originally published on Undarks website as Can a New Diagnosis Help Prevent Suicide? and has been republished here with permission.

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Treating 'suicidality' as its own medical condition could spur research, better treatment options - Genetic Literacy Project

Heritable diseases that are passed down through the generations have been known for quite some time. For most of that time though, people had no idea why it was this way, let alone what to do about it. This all changed with the arrival of DNA sequencing from the completion of the Human Genome Project over a decade ago.

Not only do people recognize that genes can play a factor in the likelihood of contracting certain ailments, but increasingly scientists are able to pinpoint where these genes are, how they are contributing to something, and to formulate a solution.

The Importance of HealthIt is not enough that people are living longer lives if those extra years are spent in a hospital bed. What really matters is not how many years you spend on this Earth, but how many healthy years. This is why the subject of health is so important. Health can be said to be the key to a truly fulfilling life.

As we age, our body accumulates more flaws and as a result we become less vigorous over the years, generally speaking. But if we take care of our health when we are young, we can slow this process down by quite a bit. There are a good number of retirees who have done this and are reaping the benefits.

In the days of old, most knowledge people had of maintaining good health was traditions passed down over the generations. This of course is not always perfect as some traditions might not be rooted in the best of science. Some traditions might be outright harmful to family and societal health.

The health of one person can potentially affect the entire family. If someone falls ill, the whole family is wrought with worry anxiety because a loved one is in distress. If it turns out to be something major, like cancer, not only is the familys emotions dragged down, but potentially their finances as well.

The miracle of modern technology is the gift that does not stop giving. With genealogy and heritage DNA tests available to the public, families might just be able to save a members life just by knowing more of something. Through knowledge and preventative medicine, people are being empowered to take matters of life into their own hands. While this of course means that a greater degree of personal responsibility is needed, this also means that we can make better decisions on what to do with our life simply because we now know more about ourselves.

As with many things, modern technology always has the potential to lend a helping hand. In the past couple centuries, human life expectancy has actually doubled worldwide! Improved sanitation, mass vaccination and germ theory have all contributed to this rise in life expectancy.

Another truly remarkable achievement has been the dramatic drop in infant mortality. Just a few short centuries ago, two in five children did not reach the age of five. In most developed countries, this has dropped to less than one in a hundred. This has resulted in the elimination of suffering for nearly countless families worldwide.

With the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA, scientists were able to confirm that certain gene expressions contributed to the rise of certain ailments and also that some of these expressions were transmitted from parent to child. And through better understanding of these gene expressions, scientists will be able to better combat these diseases.

With the Genome Project completed, the field transformed into an information technology and was able to ride the exponential wave of IT development along with countless other fields that have been swept by the IT fairy. Now, scientists are able to attack the problem of heritable diseases with even more pinpoint precision.

DNA Kit testing has exploded in popularity in recent years. With technology making everything cheaper, DNA testing kits are now within financial reach of millions of families. Some people use this technology to satisfy certain curiosities while for others, it could very well be a lifesaver.

DNA testing kits work by sending a testing kit to your address with instructions on what they need from you, usually a large saliva sample, as well as how to get it back to them. After a certain amount of time, some documents will be mailed back to you documenting their findings.

There are some DNA testing kits that specialize in looking for heritable traits with real world consequences such as predispositions to certain heritable diseases and even certain allergies. Many of us go around our daily activities not even slightly aware that we have certain predispositions we have no control over.

This can be very helpful because a DNA test might produce information that can be applied to a real-life medical situation. If you have a high chance of contracting a certain disease than most, it might make sense to take action now that might save your life and spare your family from suffering a loss in the family.

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A New Frontier in Family Health and History - The Nation Newspaper

Why it matters: The latest deep dive by Britains leading political historian examines Theresa Mays time as prime minister and details how her attitude and approach to the NHS changed during her time in Number 10.

Theresa May didnt understand what had gone wrong [on the NHS] or how to put it right when she entered Number 10, according to Sir Anthony Seldon.

She was instinctively anti-reform because she knew previous attempts had backfired, while at the same time hyper-sensitive to the possibility of a winter crisis.

Sir Anthony also claims she did want to see increased funding for the NHS, something that will surprise those senior NHS figures who met with her at this time.

Indeed, her first budget in 2017 only produced a 2.8bn increase for the NHS, despite the PMs own policy unit and NHS England chief executive Simon Stevens arguing for 4bn.

Sir Anthony quotes Mrs May as saying: The problem with conceding to what Simon Stevens is always demanding is that we end up putting the money into short-term solutions like reducing waiting lists rather than systematic improvement, or into preventative medicine or mental health.

Then health secretary Jeremy Hunt apparently agreed with the PM.

The settlement ended up riling the NHS rather than pleasing them recalls special adviser Alex Dawson.

However, towards the end of the year, Mrs Mays attitudes had begun to change.

The PM felt the Conservatives had got into a ridiculous position on the NHS as a result of being banned from discussing it by campaign guru Lynton Crosby during the 2015 and 2017 elections.

NHS performance was continuing to worsen, Mr Stevens was again growing vocal and House of Commons health select committee chair Sarah Wollaston began to call for a Royal Commission, which scared No10 and No11 witless.

On 7 February 2018, Mrs May was shown polling by Mr Dawson which demonstrated that people were prepared to pay extra taxes to fund improvements to the NHS.

Sir Anthony becomes a little too credulous at this point, taking at face value statements like the PM started to think that the NHS leadership needed to be treated in the same way as the police: it needed reform to become much more biddable.

There had been a plan to announce an inquiry into the NHS at the end of 2016, similar to the one conducted into higher education, but this had been overruled by the Treasury, says Sir Anthony.

Now the idea was reheated as a 10-year NHS Plan.

This would apparently enable Number 10 to hold the NHS to account for delivery.

The truth as most HSJ readers will know is that by 2018 the government had little choice but to significantly increase NHS funding or face a total service melt-down and the resulting political backlash. Chancellor Philip Hammond tried to hold out for a three-year settlement, but finally accepted it had to be five.

The NHS plan full of good ideas as it is was still sophisticated window dressing for dragging the NHS out of the traditional public sector spending round to be given a 70th birthday present. A fact instantly recognised by savvy commentators like Spectator editor Fraser Nelson, who was both admiring of the conjuring trick pulled off by Mr Stevens and Mr Hunt and, irritated that the spoilt NHS could get even more cash.

From the start of Mrs Mays premiership, Sir Anthony says mental health was an area in which she was prepared to take risks. He claims Mrs May won an 18-month battle from 2012 with Mr Hunt to get David Camerons government to take mental health more seriously.

Mrs May arranged for Sir Simon Wessely, former president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and Poppy Jaman, founder of Mental Health First Aid, to address Cabinet for 45 minutes.

Most ministers were attentive, apart from foreign secretary Boris Johnson who gave the impression that he thought it was all nanny-state stuff and made sotto voce asides throughout.

No surprise then that, according to Sir Anthony, those working on a subsequent project to improve black, Asian and minority ethnic mental health did their best to make it Boris proof.

Sir Simon is glowing in his praise for Mrs Mays interest in and support for the most intractable aspect of mental health, one in which there were the fewest votes: severe mental illness. Nobody since Stephen Dorrell, Conservative health secretary between 1995 and 1997, had taken such a real interest in the most difficult part of the whole spectrum, the former Royal College of Psychiatristspresident tells Sir Anthony.

Perhaps the most illuminating section of the book is the one on the disaster which befell Mrs Mays proposed social care reforms in 2017.

Here was an issue on which according to Number 10 deputy chief of policy Will Tanner Mrs May believed people felt let down by politicians and that it was her duty to act.

Her senior communications adviser Fiona Hill told the PM it was a mistake, but Sir Anthony quotes Mrs May as saying: I know Ill have to use up some of my political capital, but this is the time to do it.

As Ms Hill rowed with Mrs Mays other chief adviser Nick Timothy, the PM with tears in her eyes banged the desk and said: Were going to do this.

When as Ms Hill predicted the negative media coverage of the social care proposals provoked widespread panic among Tory MPs, Mrs May did nothing to calm the storm.

Sir Anthony notes she simply could have said: Nobody would lose their homes during their lifetime and they would be left with at least 100,000. But she didnt and, as Sir Anthony remarks later in the book, as far as Mrs May was concerned social care was dead in the water.

One intriguing side note was that the first draft of the 2017 Conservative manifesto contained a proposal to introduce social insurance. Mrs May vetoed it, saying over my dead body.

The section on the January 2018s botched reshuffle confirms Mrs May had intended to replace Mr Hunt with the solid Greg Clark to calm things down after the junior doctors strike. However, Sir Anthony has also discovered that Mr Hunt had spoken to No10 before the general election about wanting to be moved, and that rumours swirled in the corridors of power that he wanted the job of deputy prime minister.

As that possibility receded, Mr Hunt began to change his mind, without notifying Number 10. He was, recounts May at 10, increasingly keen on becoming the longest-serving health secretary in history something, of course, he achieved in due course.

If there is any political or influential figure you would likeHSJto interview, please emailalastair.mclellan@wilmingtonhealthcare.com.

The past five Bedpans

Will Hutton

Cardiac Arrest and Bodies writer Jed Mercurio

The Grenfell Tower fire

Margaret Thatcher and the birth of the internal market

Doctors for Extinction Rebellion

You can read all 44 Bedpanshere

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The Bedpan: 'The problem with conceding to Simon Stevens' - Health Service Journal

Now, more than ever, the field of cardiology needs women.

But as the national need for more cardiologists overall increases, fewer medical students are choosing to pursue a career in cardiology. Shockingly, the percentage of women entering the cardiology workforce has remained low for well over 10 years. While half of all medical students are women, fewer than one in five cardiologists is female.

I wish I better understood the reasons why. I fell in love with cardiology on the first day of medical school, almost literally. I thought the heart was an amazing organ, and because it was so intuitive, I could easily determine what would happen if certain parts stopped working or what it meant if an image showed an abnormality. I can whole-heartedly say there has not been a single day when Ive regretted making that decision, but many women hesitate to do so.

Some believe they cannot have an adequate work-life balance if they choose such a demanding field, but I have found that women truly can have it all, just perhaps not at the same time.

A series of papers in the May 30, 2018 issue of JAMA Cardiology discussed a range of potential reasons for underrepresentation of women in cardiology. In a survey of internal medicine trainees in 198 residency programs, female respondents and all respondents who chose not to go into cardiology placed a greater value on factors related to work-life balance than on finding stimulating work.

They have been conditioned to believe that the field of cardiology in particular has extensive irregular hours and significant on-call demands in interventional cardiology and other cardiovascular fields. Many also believe that there are very limited opportunities for female cardiologists to only be able to lead a womens heart program, for example. While womens heart programs are critically needed, they are not be our sole career option.

While the field admittedly is intense, cardiology has many career options. There are a number of subspecialties that allow for a better balance of work-life from preventative care and the management of lipids and high blood pressure, to doing catheter-based interventions in heart attack patients or those with rhythm disorders. There are also more choices in how we practice: solo practitioners versus members of group practices, or office versus hospital-based.

In a Viewpoint from the same JAMA issue, the author writes that more than half of women in cardiology have been asked during interviews about their intention to have children. For medical students, the decision to have children is large it often means an interruption in intensive training that can be very difficult to make up.

When I was in training, it was practically unheard of for anyone to have children, and there were absolutely no resources for childcare or maternity leave. I chose to wait until after my training to have my children a now 32-year-old son and 31-year-old daughter. I chose a job in imaging that allowed me a normal schedule, and the time I needed to be both a mother and Dr. Gillam.

But because of the groundswell of support from the professional community for more female cardiologists, more hospitals and training programs are implementing maternity or family leave policies that make it possible for women to complete their training.

At Atlantic Health System, for example, we work with women who want to have a family to create training schedules on an individual basis and are committed to figuring it out together. At present, four out of nine cardiology fellows are women.

While many programs still require expectant mothers to take sick or paid leave time before these policies take effect, this is an example of the way the profession is changing to encourage more women to enter the field.

We are becoming increasingly supported by medical professional societies dedicated to encouraging more women to go into medicine. This is true in the U.S., Canada, Europe and elsewhere in the world. The American College of Cardiology (ACC) has a Women in Cardiology Section, and I have been active in the Women in Cardiology Committee of the American Heart Association (AHA). Other groups, such as the Society for Catheterization and Angiography (SCAI), and a new international organization called Women as One have also taken on this issue.

Together, we are committed to not only changing the perception of what having a career in cardiology and a family life means for women, but providing strong female mentors who can share their own journeys, lend support and mentor the next generation of young female cardiologists.

Some of the steps we are taking include formal leadership training, mentorship programs, and conducting studies to better understand decision-making about how women choose specialties and subspecialties. We are reaching out to physicians to create a databank of women who are available to speak and serve on advisory boards. We are asking professional societies to actively look at ways to establish gender equity (as well as ethnic and racial equity) as they assign speaking roles, podium opportunities and editorial opportunities in their professional society journals and meetings.

As women are taking more leadership roles in industry, support across the pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical and medical technology industries has also been increasing. I credit much of this discussion and spirit of empowerment to the #MeToo movement, and the importance of banding together to encourage and support each other.

Today, I have a strong support network of colleagues and mentors (many of them men!) that I go to for guidance, support or clinical decision making. I also speak to them about their journeys.

I did sacrifice. In the 19 years my children were growing up until the point they left for college, I didnt change jobs and I traveled little. I did stay in close contact with my professional colleagues, but in ways that did not require me to travel.

When my youngest left for college, I made up for lost time. I took a job at Columbia in a mainstream academic program, went back to school and earned my MPH in health policy and management, and got very involved in professional organizations. I also took advantage of speaking opportunities, editorial opportunities all of the things I had to say no to in earlier parts of my career. I am friendly with a number of now-prominent female cardiologists who have the same types of stories.

What I tell my mentees, and those who speak with me about my career, is that you cant have everything at the same time, but if you think things through, you can have most things, just at different stages of your career.

There is an exceptional amount of room for women in cardiology, and a strong support network of people who are willing to work with young women to have it all in this male-dominated field.

I look forward to the day when I will read the headline, More Women Choosing Cardiology, and supporting them when they do.

About the author: Linda D. Gillam, M.D., MPH, FACC is the Dorothy and Lloyd Huck Chair of Cardiovascular Medicine at Morristown Medical Center/Atlantic Health System and professor of medicine at the Sidney Kimmel Medical College at Thomas Jefferson University. She recently completed a term as chair of the Women in Cardiology Committee of the American Heart Association and serves on the leadership committee of the AHA Council on Clinical Cardiology.Under Gillams leadership, Atlantic Health System and Morristown Medical Center have become nationally recognized as leaders in cardiovascular medicine and surgery, attracting best-in-class talent, state-of-the-art technology and clinical trials.

Related Women in Cardiology Content:

Women Breaking the Glass Ceiling in Structural Heart

See the original post here:
Women: Cardiology Needs You! - Diagnostic and Interventional Cardiology

A heart attack occurs when the flow of blood to the heart is blocked. Blood carries the oxygen and nutrients that the organs need to work properly. Blood also carries carbon dioxide to the lungs and when a blockage occurs it can be fatal. The blockage is most often a buildup of fat, cholesterol and other substances and this is known as atherosclerosis or hardening of the arteries.

Over time, the fatty material can build up inside the walls of the arteries and if it blocks the coronary artery and cuts off the supply of oxygen-rich blood to the heart muscle, the heart may become permanently damaged.

Leading health experts suggest foods that help cleanse the arteries and these include asparagus, avocado, broccoli, fatty fish, nuts and watermelon.

There is also a cooking oil that comes highly suggested for helping reduce the risk of heart attacks and cleanse the arteries.

READ MORE: Heart attack: The biggest signs you could be having a silent heart attack - what are they?

Food is directly involved in many of the risk factors for coronary heart disease and heart attacks.

Paying attention to what one eats is one of the most important preventative measures to take.

Saturated and trans fats in the diet tend to increase LDL cholesterol in the blood.

Common sources of saturated fats include animal products including butter, meat, chicken skin and full cream dairy foods and processed foods like pastries and biscuits.

The oil one cooks with could either help or hinder a persons risk of developing a heart attack.

DONT MISS

Olive oil

Olive oil has long been hailed as one of the best oils one can use for its many health benefits.

It is a staple in the Mediterranean diet and the heart-healthy benefits are well documented.

Olive oil is packed with antioxidants which relieve inflammation and decrease the risk of chronic disease.

Its also rich in monounsaturated fatty acids and many studies have associated it with improvements in heart health.

What the study says

One study in 7,216 adults at high risk for heart disease showed that those who consumed the most olive oil had a 35 percent lower risk of developing heart disease.

In another study with the US National Library of Medicine National Institutes of Health, olive oil intake was linked with a risk of cardiovascular disease.

Another large study also showed that a higher intake of olive oil was associated with lower systolic and diastolic blood pressure.

Medical News Today said: There is a protein in our blood that rises after we eat. Now, new research reveals that it plays an important role in preventing a major cause of heart attack.

"This protein is called apolipoprotein A-IV (ApoA-IV) and evidence already suggest that higher blood levels of it are linked to lower risk of cardiovascular diseases.

"For the first time, scientists at St. Michaels Hospital in Toronto, Canada, have shown that ApoA-IV stops blood platelets forming into blood clots.

"The researchers suggest that the rise in ApoA-IV blood levels following meals containing olive oil and other unsaturated fats reduces "platelet hyperactivity and bonding," which, in turn, reduces inflammation and stroke and heart attack risk.

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Heart attack: This cooking oil has been proven to prevent the life-threatening condition - Express

How does a piece of bread cause a migraine?

Migraine is the third most prevalent illness in the world and causes suffering for tens of millions of people. In fact, nearly 1 in 4 U.S. household includes someone with migraines.

Migraine is not just a headache but also includes a collection of associated symptoms that can be debilitating. These include nausea, vomiting, light sensitivity and dizziness. Often people struggle to determine what triggers their migraines. It can be environmental, hormonal, genetic, secondary to an underlying illness, or triggered by certain foods, such as cheese, red wine or chocolate. One food that has received a lot of attention in recent years is gluten - a protein found in wheat, rye and barley.

As a registered dietitian and board-certified neurologist who specializes in headache management, I often will have my patients try a gluten-free diet.

Celiac disease vs. gluten sensitivity

When someone suffers from celiac disease a digestive disorder caused by an allergy to gluten there is a clear link between migraine headaches and gluten. Gluten triggers immune cells to release antibodies to attack substances the body sees as foreign.

When someone without celiac disease eats gluten, it goes into the gastrointestinal tract where food is broken down and the nutrients are absorbed. In the case of celiac disease, that persons immune system sees the gluten as a foreign substance (like a virus or bacteria that shouldnt be there) and attacks it with a specific antibody called transglutaminase (TG) 2 serum autoantibodies to destroy the gluten.

The problem is the persons own healthy tissues gets destroyed in the process. In other words, when people who are sensitive to gluten consume it, the immune system sees this protein as an invader and creates antibodies to capture and destroy the protein. If the protein is sitting in the GI tract or has been absorbed by other organs, the antibodies go looking for it and attack whatever tissue is harboring the gluten protein.

This triggers an inflammatory reaction that puts the body in high alert that injures various healthy organs. Organs then release molecules that cause blood vessels to become leaky and release water, electrolytes and protein into the tissues and cause swelling.

This is an inflammatory response that affects the whole body, not just the brain. In addition to headaches, it can cause broader symptoms including gastrointestinal problems, fatigue and learning difficulties, just to name a few.

Step by step, how gluten leads to migraines

But just looking at a gluten-intolerant persons inflammatory response doesnt provide the whole picture on glutens link to migraine.

In recent years scientists have gained a better understanding of how and why migraines occur. Migraine is now considered a genetic condition that is found commonly within families.

Early theories suggested migraines occurred because of enlargement or dilation of the blood vessels. But now neurologists realize this isnt the whole story. We now know the cascade that leads to a migraine involves the nerves in the trigeminovascular pathway (TVP) the collection of nerves that control sensation in the face as well as biting and chewing.

When TVP is activated by the presence of gluten, for example, it causes the release of many chemicals including histamine, a substance that immune cells produce when responding to injury, allergic and inflammatory events. The TVP nerves also produce a recently discovered trigger for migraines; a protein called calcitonin gene-related peptide (CGRP).

When CGRP is released it causes the dilation of blood vessels in the meninges the layer of tissue protecting the brain. As the blood vessels dilate they leak water and proteins into the meninges which causes swelling and irritation. The swelling activates the trigenimial nerves which relay messages to other regions of the brain, including the thalamus which creates the perception of pain that is associated with a migraine.

Within the past year a new class of medications has gained FDA approval for migraine prevention. These medications are called CGRP monoclonal antibodies and have proven to be an effective preventative treatment. They stop the protein CGRP from getting into its receptor.

What to do about food triggers

In both gluten sensitivity, or celiac disease, and migraine, there is an inflammatory process occurring within the body. I hypothesize that the inflammatory response to gluten makes it easier to activate the trigeminovascular pathway, thus triggering a migraine. There has never been a large study of how exactly gluten triggers migraines, and this is something I hope to explore in future studies.

Typically, a food trigger will cause a migraine to start within 15 minutes of exposure to that substance.

If someone tests positive for celiac, or wheat allergy, then the answer is simple: remove gluten from the diet. So the question arises when someone tests negative should we still eliminate gluten? It is often worth a try, because there is a condition called non-celiac gluten sensitivity.

If someone does not have celiac disease but suffers from symptoms of gluten sensitivity, an elimination trial of gluten is often helpful for reducing migraine frequency or severity. The reason I suspect is that removing gluten will reduce chances of an inflammatory response that will activate the trigeminal nerves and trigger pain. Gluten elimination for migraines is still experimental.

We need to treat the whole person in medicine. This includes looking at potential triggers for headache and doing an elimination diet can be of benefit. There are so many gluten-free products currently on the market, it makes removing gluten from the diet easier.

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Lauren Green, Clinical Assistant Professor of Neurology, University of Southern California

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Image: Reuters

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How Gluten Destroys the Human Body - The National Interest Online

Goals

Action plan

1. Increase the average life expectancy by an additional 3 years through improvements in healthcare facilities.

2. Identify the top 10 reasons for deaths in Sri Lanka and take the necessary preventative measures.

The top 10 causes of death are:

a. Coronary heart disease.

b. Stroke.

c. Diabetes.

d. Wheezing or asthma.

e. Alzheimers disease.

f. Lung illnesses.

g. Chronic lung diseases.

h. Suicide.

i. Chronic kidney disease.

j. Cirrhosis.

3. Develop fully-fledged hospitals in the 7 main corridors to Colombo (Moratuwa, Piliyandala, Kottawa, Battaramulla, Kadawatha, Ragama and Negombo).

a. Public outskirts of Colombo will get access to high quality healthcare.

b. This will reduce the number of people coming into Colombo City for healthcare.

4. Establish an Oncology (cancer) unit at a hospital in each district in association with Maharagama Cancer Hospital.

5. Establish a modern and fully equipped patient testing laboratory in each district.

6. Build fully equipped health centres for heart, lung, neurology, Ophthalmology (eye) and paediatric illnesses in association with the respective specialised Colombo hospitals.

7. Introduce a new overtime payment scheme for doctors and medical staff to reduce the waiting time of patients for surgeries.

a. Currently, patients are listed on the waiting list for 1 week to 10 months.

b. With the new payment scheme, theatres which are used for 8 hours of work can be extended to 12 hours, including Saturdays and Sundays.

8. Apply the overtime payment scheme to all medical staff in order to make use of underutilised theatres, test and scan rooms to reduce the waiting time for patients.

9. Increase the intake of medical students from 1,300 to 2,000 at Government universities to address the shortage of qualified doctors in the country.

Increase other relevant healthcare staff.

10. Increase the intake of students in Nursing Colleges.

Sponsor foreign scholarships for senior level nurses to upgrade their skills.

11. Encourage the establishment of private hospitals through 0% corporate tax and 0% VAT incentives.

a. Additional insurance schemes will be provided to Government servants to receive medical care.

b. Patients waiting in month-long queues for operations will be transferred to these hospitals.

12. Introduce a Digital Health Hub (DHH) which will be available both online and via a mobile app.

DHH can be accessed with the Digital National Identity Card.

A strong and healthy population lives longer and is more productive. This makes an important contribution to the economic progress of a nation

Services of the DHH include:

a. Access to patients health history for the past 10 years.

b. View time slots available for scans, doctors appointments at all hospitals/clinics.

c. Alerts on scheduled appointments.

13. Develop an online portal to monitor stock availability of medicines in each hospital.

a. This can track medicine stocks available in other hospitals in a stock out situation.

b. Hospitals can order stocks in advance to avoid stock out situations by checking current stock counts digitally.

14. Digitalise the hospital bed distribution at wards to ensure the maximum utilisation of hospital beds.

15. Digitalise all test lab reports of patients in collaboration with the blood bank and use these 16. reports to forecast the patterns of the patients medical conditions.

Patients can take necessary preventive steps to control any medical condition.

16. Develop and maintain toilets according to the following standards:

a. 1 toilet for every 20 inpatient users.

b. At least 4 toilets per outpatient setting.

c. Separate toilets for medical and general staff.

17. Introduce and maintain an affordable pricing policy for essential drugs and equipment.

18. Maintain an agreed quality standard on medicines when released to markets.

Introduce labels with the content of medicine and details on any side effects.

19. Provide easy access to needed medical facilities for families who cannot have children due to medical reasons.

20. Geo-tag kidney patients and identify affected areas, including those prone to Chronic Kidney Disease (CKD) and construct deep-well (bore well) facilities with proper filtration. Already certain villages are equipped with the above-mentioned water purification systems, e.g. Saddiyawara project by Hayleys PLC.

21. Distribute soil health cards and soil-test base fertiliser recommendations.

Currently, 35,000 containers of fertiliser are imported. With the introduction of soil health cards and fertiliser recommendations, 20% (7,000 containers) of imports can be reduced.

22. Introduce Tele-medicine services to provide information and diagnosis by healthcare professionals, especially for rural areas through an online call or through preloaded data.

23. Develop videos to promote physical activity among adults and children to reduce the risk of non-communicable diseases.

24. Implement proper waste disposal methods at all hospitals.

25. To attract professional medical staff to rural postings:

a. Build international schools for their children.

b. Fully renovate rural hospitals with necessary healthcare facilities.

c. Encourage building of private hospitals for private practice.

d. Facilitate doctors quarters with all essential items.

26. Accelerate reforms in the paramedical education sector to increase the availability of nurses, pharmacists and other paramedical personnel.

27. Introduce an accident-free house planning guide for senior citizens above 65 years of age.

28. Develop Ayurveda treatment segment:

a. Provide training and access to new methods used in Ayurveda for practitioners.

b. Plant more herb farms to strengthen Ayurveda medicine production.

c. Introduce income and pension schemes for Ayurveda practitioners similar to Western medicine doctors.

d. Assist top Ayurveda practitioners in the country to establish treatment centres at tourist hubs.

29. Introduce a Low Risk Drinking Guideline to reduce health risks associated with drinking.

30. Introduce a guideline on recommended sleeping habits for all age levels to promote a healthy lifestyle among citizens.

31. Raise awareness on mental health issues and establish centres with the necessary professional staff and equipment for counselling and treatments.

32. Introduce an application with behavioural analytics technology to identify individuals with depression and anxiety.

33. Develop online video-based training programs to teach basic first aid techniques for the public in emergency situations.

34. Conduct good health habit workshops at schools, workplaces, hospitals and religious institutions.

35. Address the issue of absenteeism of girls due to menstruation, following steps to be taken:

a. Conduct awareness programs at schools, communities and families covering areas such as:

i. The process of menstruation.

ii. The importance of washing menstrual cloth.

iii. Types of absorbents that can be used during menstruation.

iv. Build the confidence of adolescent girls and educate them to accept the changes which happen during menstruation.

v. Prepare adolescent girls and their families on what to expect during menstruation and how to take care of their hygiene during that period.

b. Develop online awareness videos on menstrual hygiene.

c. Establish disposal mechanisms.

d. Develop water, sanitation and hygiene-related facilities supporting menstrual hygiene management (one toilet for every 40 girls, with water and soap).

e. Promote production of sanitary napkins at village level.

f. Counsel and support adolescent girls on how to improve their diets.

g. Conduct training programs for social development officers and teachers.

Objectives of this training program are:

a. To understand the importance of menstrual hygiene management.

b. To develop skills and capacities to address menstrual hygiene management in schools and the community level.

36. Establish active health labs around the country for health and wellness, especially of sportspersons, by giving them a free reading of their health parameters.

37. Launch a website and an app with essential information for new and expecting mothers with details about what to expect, when to get vaccinations, when to see the doctor, and book appointments with doctors.

38. Allocate free airtime and print space for health promotion, particularly for non-communicable disease risk factors in Sinhalese, Tamil and English.

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Ministry of Health: A nation rich in wellbeing - ft.lk

The global health and wellness market is often cited as the next trillion dollar industry and rightly so, considering the wealth of applications and products it incorporates in a variety of industries such as nutraceuticals and cosmeceuticals. Since a last few years, sectors such as healthy eating, nutrition, and weight loss, complementary and alternative medicine, preventative and personalized health, and beauty and anti-aging have grown in leaps and bounds. Currently, there are three trends making their presence known in the global market, viz. athleisure, boutique fitness, and organic diet. From real estate to shopping to smart technology, health and wellness has found a significant place in the everyday life of the world population.

The report on the international health and wellness market sheds light on the important segmentations by nutraceutical and cosmeceutical product types. Besides this, the analysts have explored some of the key geographical segments that the global market is anticipated to mark its territory in. With a conclusive segmentation study provided in this comprehensive publication, interested parties can take hold of the crux of the market.

Buyers of the health and wellness market publication are offered with an up-to-date analysis of the vital technological improvements and market trends. Moreover, it crafts an impact analysis along with a well-defined technological growth map. The report is a crucial guideline to understand the critical market forces restraining and propelling the global market.

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Global Health and Wellness Market: Trends

By nutraceutical product, the global health and wellness market is segmented into functional foods, functional beverages, and dietary supplements. According to cosmeceuticals, the market is segregated into cosmeceutical ingredients, cosmeceutical products, and cosmeceutical sales. The market is primarily driven by increased health awareness and boosted store presence of health and wellness products. The demand for healthcare devices, exercise equipment, organic foods, and supplementary diets has also augmented the growth of the market.

Global Health and Wellness Market: Geographical Analysis

The international health and wellness market has grown at a substantial rate not only in developed regions such as North America and Europe but also developing countries of the world. Consumer health awareness and consumer interest continue to rise in Canada on the back of the role of foods and beverages in health maintenance and their benefits. Consumers in the U.S. are anticipated to take a paradigm shift toward healthy and organic food choices as their skepticism about manmade healthy products continues.

Emerging economies such as China have persisted to show signs of growth, riding on widening consumer focus on health and increasing household income. New product development has supported the organic baby food segment. In India, the market has been propelled by the demand for health and wellness foods, increased uptake of weight control pills, and growing gym memberships.

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Global Health and Wellness Market: Competitive Overview

The report has studied some of the leading players which are vying to attain a top spot in the global health and wellness market, viz. Philips Healthcare, Abbott Laboratories, LifeScan, Inc., B. Braun Melsungen AG, Animas Corporation, LOral, Johnson & Johnson, Nestle S.A., General Mills, Inc., Coca-Cola, Omron Healthcare, F. Hoffmann-La Roche, and Medtronic, Inc. With a scrupulous analysis of the competition dynamics, it helps to gain a competitive edge in the worldwide market.

Originally posted here:
Health and Wellness Market Shares, Strategies and Opportunities 2024 - The Denton Chronicle

OBJECTIVES:

Stem cell therapy is a promising approach in the treatment of acutemyocardial infarction(AMI). Mesenchymal stem cells (MSC) from bone marrow (BM-MSC) and adipose tissue (AT-MSC) are attractive and feasible for preclinical and clinical trials. In this study, we compared the therapeutic potential of BM-MSC and AT-MSC in repairing the hearts of rats with isoproterenol (ISO)-induced AMI.

Forty-two female rats were assigned into two groups; the optimization and the experimental group. The optimization groups were further subdivided into control group and the AMI induced group (using ISO). The experimental group was subdivided into AMI+cell-free media injected in the tail vein, AMI+BM-MSC, and AMI+AT-MSC groups treated with the intravenous injection of their respective cell types. Twenty-eight days after induction, electrocardiogram (ECG) was performed, and heart tissue samples were collected for histological assessment and cells tracing.

MSC therapy repaired cardiac functions shown by the restoration of ST segment, QT and QRS intervals in the ECG when compared to the AMI group. Infarct area was significantly decreased, and cardiac tissue regeneration signs were shown on histopathological examination.

Both MSC sources proved to be equally efficient in the assessed parameters.

See the original post:
Comparative Study of the Therapeutic Potential of Mesenchymal Stem Cells Derived from Adipose Tissue and Bone Marrow on Acute Myocardial Infarction...

In the forecast period, the global stem cell therapy market is expected to generate revenue about 978 million USD in 2027, growing at a CAGR of 20% by 2019-2027.

Stem cells are found in all human beings, from the initial stages of human growth to the end of life. All stem cells are beneficial for medical research; however, each of the different kinds of stem cells has both limitations and promise. Embryonic stem cells that can be obtained from a very initial stage in human development have the prospect to develop all of the cell types in the human body. Adult stem cells are found in definite tissues in fully developed humans. Stem Cell Therapy Market are basic cells of all multicellular animals having the ability to differentiate into a wide range of adult cells. Totipotency and self-renewal are characteristics of stem cells. However, totipotency is seen in very early embryonic stem cells.

Report Consultant has added a new report to its database that qualifies an expressive and professional look into this market. The report is titled a Global stem cell therapy Market. Thus, the report scrutinizes the present-day environment of the market in order to generate a comprehensive understanding of the future plans of the market. Porters five and SWOT analysis have been utilized to scrutinize the Global stem cell therapy Market.

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Top Key Players:

Osiris Therapeutics, NuVasive, Chiesi Pharmaceuticals, JCR Pharmaceutical, Pharmicell, Medi-post, Anterogen, Molmed, and Takeda (TiGenix)

The report provides a brief timeline for each segment of the stem cell therapy market. Key drivers and restraints impacting the market segments are also demonstrated precisely. It also helps in determining reasons for the progress of certain segments over others in the looming years. The overall market is also segmented on the basis of geography in the United States, Europe, India, Japan, China, and Southeast Asia. The geographical segmentation provides a distinct assessment of the factors supporting these regions, the favorable regulatory policies, and the impact of the political frameworks.

The global stem cell therapy market report is integrated considering the primary and secondary research methodologies that have been collected from reliable sources intended to generate a factual database. The data from market journals, publications, conferences, white papers and interviews of key market leaders are compiled to generate our segmentation and is mapped to a fair trajectory of the market during the forecast period.

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Stem Cell Therapy market On the basis of product,

Stem Cell Therapy market On the basis on the Applications,

In This Study, The Years Considered To Estimate the Size Of stem cell therapy Market Are As Follows:

If you have any special requirements, please let us know and we will offer you the report as you want.

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Massive Growth for Stem Cell Therapy Market 2019 Deep Analysis of Current Trends and Future Demand by Top Key Players Osiris Therapeutics, NuVasive,...

The ability to turn human cells into anything we want sounds like the stuff of science fiction. But one Cambridge biotech says it's cracked the code

A sustainable source of human stem cells is one of the holy grails of modern medicine.

With applications as broad as re-growing failed organs, fighting cancer, and stopping animal testing, stem cell therapy is predicted to be worth US$35bn by 2023.

Now, Cambridge startup bit bio, has a new approach to re-coding skin cells from adult humans, and rewinding the clock to give them the power of stem cells, and then turn them into whatever we want them to be all without the controversial involvement of human embryos.

This, says neurosurgeon and founder Dr Mark Kotter, will democratise stem cells, so that anyone can use them, at any time.

The private sector is already placing big bets on the technology, with start-ups in the space raising as much as US$16mln in recent funding rounds.

Kotter says that our inability to produce enough human stem cells to match our need puts troubling limits on research and drug development.

In drug discovery, the biggest bottleneck is the mismatch between animal models and animal cell lines used for drug discovery, and then human setting used in the clinical trial, he explains.

Around 3% of new drugs make it all the way through trials and to market, he says, and the biggest reasons treatments tend to fail in clinical study is that they are either toxic to humans, or they dont work.

The only solution is to bring the human element back to the early stages, says Kotter.

If new therapies were tested on human tissue first, it would reduce or even bypass the need to test on animals, as well as speeding up development.

Kotter founded bit bio, formerly known as Elpis BioMed, in 2016, in addition to startup Meatable, which produces meat by growing cultures in the lab, rather than rearing animals for the table.

The time is now for bit bio, because what it is doing has only been possible since a Nobel Prize-winning discovery twelve years ago, which turned the world of stem cell research upside down.

Kyoto University researcher Shinya Yamanaka proved that it was possible to take a mature human skin cell and reprogram it to be like the stem cell of an embryo.

Until this revelation, stem cell research had been dogged by controversy and expense, as scientists had to use human embryos and umbilical cords as a source of stem cells, and then simulate complex conditions inside the womb in order to make them develop into the cells they desired.

One big problem in early cell reprogramming was that stem cells are incredibly alert to invading DNA and silences any foreign material it detects.

This meant that past attempts run a different program inside a cell often failed, because the cell destroyed it.

What happened next was a moment of "serendipity" in the lab, says Kotter.

Through trial and error, bit bio found they could use certain safe harbours where information is protected within cells, to stop theinterference.

By taking the genetic switch for gene silencing and placing it inside a safe harbour, and then separately running the new cell program inside another safe harbour, scientists found they could override gene silencing in order to change the cell type.

This approach is what Kotter says makes bit bio unique.

The lab can produce up to a kilogram of human cells now, and its tech platform opti-oxhas also proved that it can generate two human cell types with 100% accuracy.

Kotter says that now the range of cells able to be produced matters more than the quantity.

The company is now focused on discovering what separates one type of cell from another, which Kotter says will allow the firm to decode the building blocks of life.

To this end, bit bio is using machine learning to analyse the differences between every type of human cell, from bone marrow cells to liver cells, and create a reference map for all the different types.

Once the research is complete, the company hopes it willbe able to generate any type of human cell, at scale, and with ultimate precision.

Preparations are underway for a Series A funding round, and Kotter says that he is determined not to sell the business, having already rejected offers from would-be buyers.

Bit bio though is in an area hot with competition, which moves quickly.

A US$16mln Series A mega funding round was recently announced in October by another Cambridge start-up, Mogrify, which is hoping to master direct cell reprogramming and turn blood cells straight into brain cells, or any other type.

Mogrify uses big data to identify the small molecules needed to convert, maintain and culture a target cell type.

While both companies were finalists in the 2018 Cambridge Startup of the Year award, bit bio was the one to scoop the prize.

One aspect that separates the two companies is that Mogrify uses its technology to turn cells directly into other cell types, rather than using it to rewindto the stem cell phase, which is when cells can reproduce very quickly,

Kotter says that this stem cell phase focusis whatallows bit bio to havea stable supply of human cells.

If bit bio completes a similar, or even bigger, fundraise, it could advance the fledgling firm from seed to stem, in its attempt to stabilise a production line for essential cell technology.

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Decoding the building blocks of life: bit bio races toward a sustainable source of human cells - Proactive Investors UK

In Cuba there are 26,952 persons infected with the HIV/AIDS virus until the end of November, according to data released this Thursday by the islands National Center for Health Promotion and Education (CNPES).

Among those diagnosed, the most affected are transsexual women, with 19.7%; men who have sex with other men (MSM), 5.6%; and people who practice transactional sex (in exchange for objects, money or privileges), which are 2.8%.

The Cuban provinces that show the highest incidence of contagion are Havana, the central Cienfuegos and the eastern Las Tunas and Guantnamo, said CNPS Deputy Director Otto Pelez, cited by the state-run Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN) news agency.

The islands public health authorities highlight the control in maternal-infant transmission in children under 14, in heterosexual people, as well as the early detection of the disease, among the positive results of the Cuban program to prevent the spread of the virus, which is recognized by international organizations.

At the close of 2018, about 25,494 persons with HIV/AIDS had been detected in the Caribbean country, and more than 2,200 of them were new cases.

At that time 80% (20,446) were men and the rest (5,048) women, aged between 15 and 49, 74%, according to data from the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP) collected by state media.

Ms de 2,200 nuevos casos de VIH en Cuba en 2018

In 1985, four years after the disease was discovered, the first case of HIV/AIDS was detected in Cuba in a man who had spent two years in Mozambique, Africa. Since then, the number who have contracted the virus is more than 30,000, of which a part died.

In the early days after the onset of the epidemic in the country, the diagnosed persons were admitted to health centers where they received treatment and were kept in isolation, with exceptional outings, in order to avoid the transmission of the virus.

On the island, patients receive a free treatment of five locally produced retrovirals combined with other imported ones. The objective of this therapy is to keep the levels of the AIDS virus low in blood and control its multiplication, which means that the patient has no complications and remains stable, according to the specialists.

Last March, pre-exposure prophylaxis pills (PrEP) started being given out in Cuba to prevent the spread of HIV in healthy people, a relatively new treatment in the Americas that is estimated to reduce the probability of contracting the virus by 90%.

In addition, since 2017 Cuban scientists have been testing the TERAVAC-VIH vaccine, developed at the Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology in Havana and designed to reduce the viral load of patients with the virus and improve the quality of life of the patients.

EFE / OnCuba

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Almost 27000 persons with HIV in Cuba - OnCubaNews

The acceptance of the microbiome diet as a means of achieving gut health among consumers could pave a path for a shift in attitude towards GM food, according to Michael Miille CEO at Joyn Bio.

Proponents of GM food contend that genetic engineering can help us find sustainable ways to feed people. One proponent is the US start-up Joyn Bio, a joint ag-tech venture between synthetic biology company Ginkgo Bioworks and pharma giant Bayer, which was formed in 2017 with a $100 million Series A round coming from its two parent companies.

Joyn Bio is attempting to engineer microbes that can provide plants with biological nitrogen fertilizer, thus decreasing the environmental impact of agriculture.

By engineering microbes it can eliminate the need for synthetic fertilizers, which have boosted crop yields over the past century but in the process have harmed soil health and caused environmental ills. Runoff from excess nitrogen fertilizer into rivers and oceans has created a dead zone of toxic algae in the Gulf of Mexico the size of New Jersey, for example.

Joyn Bio is headquarted in Boston. Its testing facility in California focuses on the genetic modification of the colonies of bacteria that make up crops microbiomes. It can then engineer those microbes to produce specific proteins as possible alternative to chemical fertilizers and other chemicals.

Any product is unlikely to be ready for market before 2020. Neither will any product be offered in Europe, where regulations do not currently permit engineered microbial products as produced by Joyn Bio (its current focus is on offering its solution to growers in the US, Brazil and India).

It believes nevertheless that it offers a potential global solution to the challenges facing the food industry. Its goal is to engineer microbes to reduce the amount of industrial nitrogen fertilizer needed to grow crops like corn, wheat, or rice, to dramatically decrease the water pollution, fossil fuel used and greenhouse gases produced by agriculture today.

"What we were really launched around was nitrogen fixation and recognising the environmental impact both in production and in application of the synthetic nitrogen fertilisers, which is not sustainable, then at the same time trying to come up with a solution,explained Miille.

Growers, he believes, are in desperate need of innovation and additional solutions given all the things they are confronting.Joyn Bio claims it can help farmers increase yield by promoting stronger plants and better nutrient uptake, ultimately contributing to the transformation of agriculture towards a more sustainable future.

How exactly does it all work? Our product would be a microbe that associates with the plant and is delivered as a seed treatment, said Miille.

Image the microbe as a trillion little FedEx trucks running all over the plant delivering cargo, he says. That cargo then takes nitrogen from the air, converts it into the nitrogen that the plant needs, and then gives it to the plant.

Its very similar to what happens in a soy bean plant naturally via evolution, but the soy and wheat plants never did that.

All this can allow a grower to reduce their fertilizer input by 30-40%, thus saving the grower money and allowing them to benefit from an environmental standpoint.

The process could potentially be used to make food more nutritious too. "You could use the microbes to signal the plant to potentially produce more of its nutritious part - there are number of nutrition enhancements that you can engineer. It's not our initial focus because it's a little more challenging but [improved nutrition] is certainly something people are looking at across the whole food spectrum today.

GM foods have something of a toxic legacy with European consumers, however, of which Miille is well aware. His solution to this challenge is simply to be straight with people. The problems of the past came about because companies such as Monsanto failed to be, he said. "Were trying to learn from that. I think its really critical to be transparent with consumers. Well want them to know we have these engineered microbes and here's what they did.

If crops produced via engineered microbes are used to grow something viable then people will accept it, he believes. Take the papaya industry in Hawaii, he noted, which was saved by GMO technology. "The same thing is going to happen with the US chestnut industry. There are going to be more examples of a pest or diseases that will threaten to wipe something out and the solution is biotechnology. And when you can save something when its that dramatic a benefit and you can communicate that to consumers, they get it.

He continued: For those of us on the science, technology and innovation side, the important thing is to understand how critical it is to engage with consumers and be transparent with them. The other side of the equation is to be able to articulate the benefit. If the benefit is that you either have strawberries or you don't, people will get that.

"Another thing in our favour is that peoples opinions and concerns about chemicals are probably at an all-time high.

The growth in popularity of the microbiome diet among consumers is another potential factor in Joyn Bios favour. If consumers now accept that the microbes in our gut play a critical role in overall health, whats not to stop them accepting the importance microbes could potentially have in agriculture?

More people than ever are taking probiotics because it improves gut health, said Miille. The next step is to say to consumers that microbes are part of the solution and all we've really done is taken this microbe and selectively optimised it for its particular purpose. These kind of discussions, he said, will get people to accept that microbes are going to be an integral part of agriculture over the next 20-30 years.

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Microbes 'set to be an integral part of agriculture over the next 20-30 years': Joyn Bio - FoodNavigator.com

FDA for the first time has approved an experiment that involves temporarily transplanting pig tissue into humans, a move that experts say could lead to further developments in animal-to-human donations, Emily Mullin reports for Medium's "OneZero."

CRISPRand 7 other technologies that could transform health care

Each year in the United States, the waiting list for organ transplants grows and outpaces the number of available donations. And due to strict donor criteria, skin is also difficult to acquire, Mullin reports.

The new FDA-approved trial will focus on skin transplanted from pigs to humans.

Usually, second and third-degree burns are treated with human skin grafts to protect the wounds and help fight off infection. But researchers at biotech company XenoTherapeutics have genetically engineered miniature pigs to allow for use in humans. The skin, called Xeno-Skin, is made from living pig tissue.

So far, the Xeno-Skin has been transplanted to one patient who received a five-by-five centimeter piece of pig skin as well as human skin grafts. Five days after the transplant, doctors removed both skin grafts and replaced them with permanent grafts from the patient's thigh. The donor pig skin healed as well as the human skin graft, according to doctors involved in the trial. The patient also did not experience any adverse reactions to the graft.

Now, as part of the FDA-approved trial, Xeno-Skin will be transplanted as temporary skin grafts to five more burn victims at Massachusetts General Hospital. The grafts will be removed once the patients' skin grows back.

The experiment is the first of its kind to be approved by FDA, Mullin reports.

XenoTherapeutics is also developing nerves in the genetically engineered pigs that could be transplanted into people with nerve damage from accidents. The clinical trial for the new treatment will likely begin next year, Mullin reports.

In the past, donations from animals to humans, also called xenotransplantation, have almost always failed, Mullin writes, with common issues including patients experiencing an immune response to the donation or the transmission of an animal virus to the human recipient. Surgeon Keith Reemtsmain the 1960s transplanted chimpanzee kidneys into humans, but most of the transplants were rejected or became infected within a few weeks. And in 1984, a baby called "Baby Fae," received a heart transplant from a baboon, but died within a month.

After transplants from apes and monkeys failed, doctors started to consider pigs as potential human donrs, Mullin reports. "The reasons are largely practical," Mullin writes. "For one, pigs take only months to grow to a size suitable for organ donation, unlike monkeys, which require 10 to 15 years. Pig organs are also closer in size to human ones."

When it comes to skin transplants, while dead, processed pig skin is already used for wound dressing, living pig tissue had never been used in humans, Mullin reports. To prevent rejection, scientists used genetic engineering to eliminate molecules found in pigs that would trigger an immune system reaction in humans. Researchers also used the gene-editing tool CRISPR to remove a group of viruses found in pigs that are considered an infection risk for human donation recipients.

While temporary pig skin grafts are much more low risk than transplanting major pig organs into humans permanently, the successful skin graft transplant further demonstrates that "the risk" of xenotransplants "is manageable," according to Megan Sykes, director of the Center for Translational Immunology at Columbia University. "The fact that the FDA allowed this [pig skin] trial reflects that thought as well."

While xenotransplants are often used as bridge transplants, or temporary transplants that are designed to keep patients alive for a period of time before they receive a transplant from a human donor, Muhammad Mohiuddin, director of the cardiac transplantation program at the University of Maryland School of Medicine who has led research on pig transplants, believes that organ xenotransplantation might evolve enough to become a longer term solution. "[O]nce we have an ideal pig available and it survives for a longer period of time, there will not be a need to replace that organ," he said.

But convincing the public that pig transplants are safe might prove to be more difficult, he added. "If you tell someone, 'We want to put a pig heart in you,' there would probably be quite an uproar," Mohiuddin said. "If this trial is successful, that will pave the way for other types of transplantations, like kidneys, hearts, lungs, or livers."

While these types of transplants might not happen for another few decades, Ardehali said the field is getting closer. "Are we about to embark on a new chapter? I don't know the answer to that. This requires a significant leap of faith" (Mullin, "OneZero," Medium, 11/11).

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'A leap of faith': FDA just approved the first pig-to-human tissue transplant - The Daily Briefing

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The central dogma of biology describes the flow of genetic information from DNA to RNA to proteins. While RNA was originally believed to be a carrier of genetic information, subsequent work has shown something completely different: RNA is now known to have function independent of proteins, with a rich layer of regulatory networks. In fact, a large amount of the RNA present in a cell does not actually make proteins. This increased appreciation and understanding has led to many fascinating mechanistic insights into RNA and its role as a central player in cellular regulation and human disease.

Helping to facilitate RNA function are a large number of proteins that can bind to and regulate RNA. These RNA-binding proteins, or RBPs, number in the thousands and are made up of many different independent modular segments similar to a childs set of building blocks. In much a similar fashion, these blocks or domains provide nature with a way of mixing and matching different domains to generate new functions. In recent years, researchers have sought to learn from biology and use these building blocks to engineer new proteins with unique functions that are helpful in research and human health. In a recent study published in WIREs RNA, Professor Andrew Berglund and his colleagues describe recent advances and challenges in engineering RBPs.

Engineering [RBPs] is a powerful tool for researchers to probe the mechanisms of RNA processing pathways says Dr. Andrew Berglund, the newly appointed Director of the RNA Institute at the University at Albany. It is also a promising approach for the development of novel therapeutic molecules.

Potential targets for this approach are abundant as many human diseases have a strong RNA or RBP component, including the most common cause of muscular dystrophy and amylotrophic lateral sclerosis. For therapeutic purposes, engineered RBPs can be designed to replace a defective cellular RBP or bind and destroy toxic RNA. RBPs can also be engineered with new functions and/or targets as well as being marked or tagged so that the researcher can follow their progression within the cell, like a GPS tracker for RNA. The modular nature of RBPs makes it possible to add or mix function to suit the goal of almost any researcher.

In their study published in WIREs RNA, the research team highlights two specific types of RBDs domains, PPR and PUF domains, which are the most straightforward choice for protein engineering. Researchers have studied these domains, understand how to design them to bind specific RNA sequences, and even have websites that can be used to design a domain to target your RNA of choice. Not all RBP engineering is this straightforward, with most researchers having to consider other factors such as the type of linker between domains, where in the tissue or the cell that protein must go, and how to attach other domains to give the engineered protein function.

Ultimately, as more functions of RNA are discovered and more diseases are linked to RNA misregulation, the greater the importance will be for designing, engineering, and testing novel RNA binding proteins. Somewhere in a jumble of RBP building blocks may lie the key to unlocking the next big discovery on RNA and potentially the next generation of therapeutics to improve human health.

Kindly contributed by the authors.

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Engineering RNA Binding Proteins to Improve Human Health - Advanced Science News

Geneticist Kat Arney takes a look at the science of de-extinction, asking whether its feasible or even ethical to bring species back from the past.

In 2003, Spanish researchers used cloning techniques to bring back the recently extinct bucardo (a type of mountain goat), only for the first cloned animal to die within minutes of birth.Other scientists are using genetic engineering techniques to stitch together the genomes of extinct species like passenger pigeons and woolly mammoths with their modern-day relatives.

Could these tools ever be used to bring back the biggest animals of them all, the dinosaurs? And is all this effort really worth it, or should we be focusing on conserving the species we already have on Earth?

Arney also investigates the history of one of the most famous diagrams in biology the Tree Of Life which Charles Darwin famously drew in 1837 to illustrate the evolutionary relationships between species.

Todays trees much more complex, bushy thickets, informed by modern genomics. But all this data brings a new challenge: deciding what counts as a species in the first place.

Full transcript, credits and show notes are available here.

Genetics Unzipped is the podcast from the UK Genetics Society, presented by award-winning science communicator and biologist Kat Arneyand produced byFirst Create the Media.Follow Kat on Twitter@Kat_Arney,Genetics Unzipped@geneticsunzip,and the Genetics Society at@GenSocUK

Listen to Genetics Unzipped onApple Podcasts(iTunes)Google Play,Spotify,orwherever you get your podcasts

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Podcast: From Jurassic Park to woolly mammoths is it right to bring back extinct species? - Genetic Literacy Project

Just as physics and chemistry have given humans power over the world of the inanimate, biology is giving us the ability to engineer living systems, from viruses and bacteria to animals and people.

Which is why [Wired co-founder Jane] Metcalfe thinksdesigncould be the next big thing in medicine.

Well combat disease and improve human health by designing biological systems from the ground up. We can design embryos. We can edit genes in humans. We have synthetic biology. And so we really are looking at designing future humans, Metcalfe said.

The ultimate goal is writing whole human genomes from scratch, and [Andrew] Hessel cofounded Genome Project-write (GP-write) to convene the worlds top synthetic biologists to do just that.

There are obviouslybig hurdles that still need clearingincluding software that can make design more accurate and efficient and DNA synthesis tools that assemble longer base-pair sequencesand Hessels group recently published a paper outlining the challenges.

Literally in 10 years weve gone from making proteins synthetically to making a eukaryote, he said. As soon as we can start making whole chromosomes, well, weve only got 23 of them.

Read full, original post: Why Designing Our Own Biology Will Be the Next Big Thing in Medicine

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How synthetic biology will allow us to redesign humans 'from the ground up' - Genetic Literacy Project

"Theres been an enormous collapse in diversity," said Mr Blazey, the founder of gardening business The Diggers Club, which his family donated to the charity Diggers Foundation in 2011. He will also talk about the threat to food security at an event at Camperdown's Pocket City Farms on Sunday.

The number of seeds owned by the public had shrunk since genetic engineering was introduced in the early 1980s, Mr Blazey said.

First grown in 1802, the "lazy housewife" bean was one seed away from being lost forever, when it was propagated by The Diggers Club. The heirloom variety is now sold as a good bean for cooks and gardeners of any gender.

He started rescuing heirloom seeds 25 years ago, including the stringless bean, which was down to its last seed - in Germany - and sent to Australia. Since then, the world had lost about 60 per cent of vegetable varieties while the big companies such as Monsanto sold hybrids, he said.

"Thats a serious problem but most people dont see it. When you are buying a tomato, it is a hybrid and it won't be true to type [if you try to reproduce it]," he said. It also doesn't taste as good.

"If pestilence and climate change force us into disaster, we will have to ask Monsanto [recently taken over by Bayer] if we can grow [its] seeds and collect them.

"It is a disaster scenario, which nobody understands. Most of us don't realise we have lost complete control of seed supply," Mr Blazey said.

Five colour silverbeet, a very old variety, now sold by The Diggers Club.

The Grow It Local Festival and its website were started to encourage people to grow their own food, said co-founder Darryl Nichols, who also started the Garage Sale Trail 10 years ago.

There's also some "crowd farming": connecting locals who know how to garden with those who don't. Hundreds of people have registered their gardens, some running classes, including Composting 101, while others have offered advice and unused garden space.

When one of the site's Perth members offered a "seven-course plant-based patch-to-plate degustation", 14 strangers turned up, Mr Nichols said.

Like the Pocket City Farms, which is encouraging gardens in unused urban spaces, the site's members are growing vegetables wherever they can, horizontally and vertically.

In Bondi Junction, Tina has the beginning of a banana grove, with plans to fill up the nature strip with vegetables and ornamentals. In Killara, Mike is growing chili in his 15-square-metre back-garden. In Randwick, Jess and Andrew are "challenging the concept that you cant grow much in a concreted backyard". A woman is growing herbs on a vertical pallet on the verge to share with her neighbours.

It is a similar concept to The Diggers Club, which sells nearly 700 seed varieties, many heirloom, some brought to Australia by members when they migrated.

Different varieties of potatoes. Credit:David Cavanaro.

They include the pumpkin ironbark, which was down to 10 seeds a few years ago and unavailable anywhere else in the world. Reg, a market gardener, passed on seeds to two old heirloom varieties, red odourless onion and a carrot called "western red" before he died.

The number of vegetable seeds has shrunk to a fraction since 1900, according to this chart by Diggers Club. Credit:Clive Blazey

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Collapse in diversity threatens food security, seed rescuer says - The Age