Monthly Archives: July 2016

World Hepatitis Day July 28th: Know Hep for NOHep!

Awareness Day/Month

Viral hepatitis, an inflammatory liver disease is commonly caused by hepatitis A, B, C, D, or E virus. In 2013, an estimated 1.45 million people died of the disease. Around 400 million people are believed to be infected with hepatitis B and C virus worldwide. In India, the population prevalence of chronic hepatitis is around 3-4%. Sadly, only 5% of the patients know about their chronic infection and only 1% have access to current treatment options.

Viral Hepatitis: Know it to Act Now

Many people with hepatitis do not have symptoms and do not know they are infected. If symptoms occur with an acute infection, they can appear anytime from 2 weeks to 6 months after exposure. Chronic viral hepatitis can take decades to develop symptoms. Symptoms of hepatitis are: fever, fatigue, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, dark urine, grey-colored stools, joint pain, and jaundice. Common modes of transmission of hepatitis virus are through contaminated blood or blood products, unsafe sex, and use of contaminated medical equipment such as infected syringes. Hepatitis B is transmitted from mother to baby at birth, from family member to child, and also through sexual contact. Hepatitis viruses B and C are the most common cause of liver cirrhosis and cancer.

Let’s Join in for Hepatitis Elimination

In 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) had announced World Hepatitis Day (WHD) to be celebrated each year on 28th July. Since then, millions of people across the world have been taking part in WHD campaign to bring awareness about hepatitis. In 2016, WHO has urged different nations to fast-track actions for educating people about the disease, its screening, and to improve access to quality healthcare and services to fight against hepatitis.

NOhep is a global movement which aims to unite hepatitis community worldwide and provide a platform for them to voice their opinion, share their stories, and plan for an action to ensure global commitments for elimination of viral hepatitis by 2030.

  • Know the Risk: Be aware of the modes of transmission of hepatitis. With better information and knowledge about hepatitis risks, you can prevent yourself from getting infected and transmitting the infection to others.
  • Get Diagnosed: WHO has recommended simple testing strategies such as blood tests to help country efforts to scale up screening and early detection of hepatitis
  • Head for Treatment: More than 90% of people with hepatitis C can get completely cured of the virus within 3–6 months. Appropriate treatment of hepatitis B and C can prevent the development of major fatal complications associated with liver dysfunction.

Treatment for hepatitis generally includes:

  • Abstinence from alcohol and bed-rest
  • Medication strategy
    • Preventive vaccines
    • Use of interferons (standard and PEGylated)
    • Nucleoside/nucleotide analogues such as telbivudine, lamivudine, adefovir, or entecavir
  • Liver transplant in severe cases of hepatitis (hepatitis-induced liver damage)

 

Turacoz Healthcare Solutions provides assistance in publication of research articles and clinical research documents. We consider it our corporate social responsibility to raise awareness for hepatitis eradication. On World Hepatitis Day, let’s take a pledge to join the cause. Together we can make it possible!

Dehydration and Importance of Oral Rehydration Salts

Health & Fitness, ,

Introduction

Dehydration is a condition where free water loss exceeds free water intake. Around 2/3rd of the human body is composed of water, and helps in various functions such as lubrication of the joints and eyes,digestion, flushing out of wastes and toxins, and maintaining the balance of minerals (salts and sugar) in our body. Dehydration may occur due to exercise or diseases, high environmental temperature, not drinking enough fluids, persistent vomiting and diarrhea, sweating due to fever etc.

Causes for Dehydration

There are different conditions which may cause dehydration. Some of them are as follows:

  • Gastrointestinal: Diarrhea and vomiting due to gastroenteritis, cholera, yellow fever or infection of the gastrointestinal tract leads to dehydration as well as an electrolyte imbalance.
  • Sweating:Excessive sweating due to vigorous exercise, sports, fever, heavy manual work, climatic conditions etc. results in fluid loss and dehydration.
  • Alcohol intake: Alcohol is a diuretic and stimulates urination resulting in dehydration.
  • Diabetes: In diabetes, kidney removes extra glucose along with water, which in turn may result into dehydration.
  • Blood loss: Excessive loss of blood can also result in dehydration.

People can tolerate 3-4%decrease in total body water without any difficulty. But 5-8% decrease can cause fatigue and dizziness and above 8% can prove to be dangerous.

Signs and Symptoms

The early signs of dehydration include feeling thirsty and lightheaded, dry mouth,tiredness,having dark colored face, strong smell in urine, passing urine less often than usual etc.

Remedies and Treatments

  • Drink plenty of fluids such as water, squash or fruit juice and avoid caffeinated beverages and fizzy drinks.
  • In illnesses such as vomiting or diarrhea, it is difficult to maintain optimum water level in our body. In such cases, it is better to have small sips of water or other fluids.
  • Infants and children who are dehydrated or having diarrhea should be given oral rehydrated salts (ORS)as recommended by World Health Organization (WHO) instead of water.This is because water can dilute the already low levels of electrolytes and minerals in the body. ORS is a mixture of electrolytes and sugars mainly given to restore imbalance of body fluids. It is very helpful in adults suffering from dehydration, vomiting, and diarrhea.

Importance of ORS

  • ORS is a special combination of dry salts (electrolytes) that are mixed with water. It can help to replace the fluids lost due to diarrhea and vomiting.
  • ORS is important because it helps to rehydrate the body with essential electrolytes, especially sodium and potassium.
  • In severe case of dehydration, when fainting or unconsciousness occurs, ORS can be given through intravenous injections for replenishment of necessary electrolytes and water.
  • In mild dehydration, an oral rehydration can be given which is less painful, and less expensive as compared to ORS given through intravenous route.
  • ORS can be prepared at home by simply mixing 6 level teaspoons of sugar and 1/2 level teaspoon of salt in 1 liter of clean water.
  • ORS is the best treatment option for dehydration

Turacoz Healthcare Solutions is engaged in spreading awareness among people regarding any healthcare issues. We consider it our responsibility to create awareness about any health-related issues in the general public.

Turacoz at 6th Asia-Pacific Pharma Congress, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

News

Turacoz attended 6thAisa- Pacific Pharma congress organized by Omics International on 12th July,2016 at Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.The aim of the conference was to connect pharmaceutical industries, universities, educational institutions, research centers and societies contributing to pharma industries on a single platform. Medical Director of Turacoz Healthcare Solutions Dr. Namrata Singh was a speaker at the conference who represented her views on Clinical Trial Disclosure and Redaction from Medical communication’s perspective. It was a wonderful experience meeting and interacting with the medical fraternity from all over the world.

Sedentary Lifestyle: A Threat to your Good Health!

Health & Fitness

Humans were designed to move around and stay physically active. However, over the period of time, we evolved technologically and the levels of our physical activity steeply declined. Our environment at work, schools, homes, and public places were gradually engineered in such a way which restricted our daily physical activity and compelled us to assume a non-exercising behaviour. Steadily, we adapted the non-exercising behaviour in our lifestyle and became sedentary or negligibly active.Parallel with this major change in our lifestyle, several pieces of evidence emerged which identified sedentary behaviour as a novel risk factor for cardiometabolic diseases and all-cause mortality. Studies showed that the mediocrity begins the precise moment when we swap activity with sedentary behaviour. Therefore, it is important to understand the health risks associated with sedentary lifestyle and take timely action.

What is a sedentary lifestyle?

A sedentary lifestyle can be defined as sitting, lying down, and expending very little energy (approximately 1.0-1.5 metabolic equivalents [METs]) in a day. Due to limited physical activity and associated health risks, asedentary lifestyle is also termed as a “sitting disease”.

Who is expected to have a sedentary lifestyle?

With changing nature of our work and leisure activities, an average adult is likely to spend more than 70% of the waking time in a day being sedentary or minimally active. The levels of inactivity tend to increase with growing age, and women are more prone to inactive lifestyle as compared to men. However, recent trends have shown a surge in sedentary behaviour among children.

Health risks associated with sedentary lifestyle

Lack of physical activity has clearly been shown to be a risk factor for several physical, mental and psychological disorders. Individuals having a sedentary lifestyle are at greater risk of having cardiovascular diseases, hypertension, pulmonary embolism, diabetes, and obesity. Increased adiposity (excessive weight gain) due to sedentary lifestyle also increases the risk of certain cancers like endometrial cancer, colon cancer and breast cancer. Additionally, non-exercising behaviour also results in several bone and muscle disorders like osteoporosis, back or neck pain, and muscle degeneration. An overall poor health of a sedentary individual is later accountable for developing psychological stress, depression and anxiety disorders. Worrisome is the fact that lack of physical activity and its associated conditions account for about 3.2 million deaths a year across the globe.

Tips to overcome sedentary lifestyle

Sedentary lifestyle can be easily avoided by making few smart choices at work and leisure, such as:

  • Go NEAT (non-exercise activity thermogenesis), i.e. set an alarm after each couple of hours which reminds you to stand up and go on your feet. This can include simple stretching, taking a walk around the office, or a 10-minute brisk walk. It is an ideal option for those who can’t manage to go to the gym after work.
  • Walk n Work:Schedule walking meetings with your team, walk while having a telephonic conversation, pick up your lunch instead of ordering delivery, walk to the market for picking up daily grocery, and take stairs instead of elevator whenever permissible.
  • Rearrange the workplace: Install treadmills or stationary cycles to encourage physical activity at work, schedule regular exercise sessions at workplace for your team, and relocate water coolers and trash cans so that people have to move from their workplace to use them.
  • Commute differently:If possible, try to commute with public transport or use cycle instead of personal vehicles.
  • Exercise:Try to engage yourself in a physical activity, exercise or sport of your choice. Make sure you spend at least a day each week exercising.

Being physically active is necessary for having a physical and mental well-being. A sedentary lifestyle is a root cause for most of the modern day diseases and it can be easily avoided by making healthy choices for you and your family. Turacoz Healthcare Solutions always tries to encourage its employees and everyone to exercise daily and lead a physically active, healthy life.

Physical activity should be adopted as a behaviour in daily life, and one should remember to ‘get up and move’!

Novel Therapeutic Advances for Management of Diabetes Mellitus

Health & Fitness

Diabetes mellitus (DM) has become one of the most challenging health problems in the 21st century. It is a serious public health problem globally, but the good news is that various advances are being made in prevention, detection, and treatment of diabetes. Though prevention is always better than cure, yet sometimes prevention is not possible and the cure seems to take ages. The interest to find a possible cure for diabetes has eventually led to exploration of various new scientific areas of research.

Volanesorsen

Volanesorsen (formerly ISIS-APOCIIIRx)is an antisense drug in development intended to treat patients with severely high triglycerides either as a single agent or in combination with other triglyceride-lowering agents.Elevation in triglycerides has always increased the risk of cardiovascular disorders as well as type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM). Researchers from the University of Pennsylvania have found the therapeutic effect of lipid-lowering medication sin improving insulin sensitivity in people with T2DM. Volanesorsen is an oral medication that can help to control the blood sugar levels. Itis believed to improve the insulin sensitivity and significantly decrease the patients’ overall glycated hemoglobin (HbA1c). After taking the medication for 12 weeks, researchers found that adult T2DM patients receiving volanesorsen experienced 69% reduction in triglycerides, and 57% improvement in whole-body insulin sensitivity.Researchers concluded that decrease in triglycerides was strongly related to improved insulin sensitivity and improved HbA1c.

PEGylated Lispro

PEGylated lispro (LY2605541) has been developed by the addition of polyethylene glycol (PEG) to insulin lispro, leading to its extended half-life. Early phase evaluations of PEGyalted lispro confirm its non-inferiority to glargine with a potential weight advantage when used in T2DM. Since insulin therapy is anabolic and its initiation is commonly associated with weight gain, an insulin preparation associated with a beneficial weight profile would represent a particularly valuable therapeutic entity.

Pre-clinical studies indicate that LY2605541 has low mitogenic potency, exerting a preferential hepatic effect on glucose homeostasis. However, LY2605541 appears to cause elevated transaminases and derangement of lipid profiles. On the basis of these initial observations, LY2605541 requires further extensive clinical evaluation to fully assess its risk/benefit profile in the management ofdiabetes.

Islet Transplantation

A novel technology has been developed to help treat type 1 diabetes mellitus (T1DM) and potentially negate the need for insulin injections. Islets are organoids that produce multiple hormones, including insulin, and donated islets are already treating severe cases of T1DMeffectively. Islet transplantation can transform the lives of T1DM patients, and may result in long-term freedom from insulin injections with excellent glucose control.

Natural Products

Plants possessing antidiabetic properties may be suitable as an adjunct to the existing therapies or as a prospective source of new hypoglycemic compounds. Many new bioactive drugs isolated from plants demonstrate antidiabetic activity equal to known oral hypoglycemic agents such as tolbutamide and chlorpropamide. Several plant species with terpenoids, flavonoids, phenols, coumarins, and other bioactive constituents have shown their potency in reducing blood glucose levels. Plants likeAllium sativum(Liliaceae),Gymnema sylvestre(Asclepiadaceae),Murraya koenigii(Rutaceae),Allium cepa(Liliaceae),Withania somnifera (Solanaceae), andFerula foetida (Umbelliferae) have exhibited antidiabetic properties when assessed in experimental models of diabetes. These traditional approaches might prove to bebeneficial in treatment of diabetic complications.

Great strides have been made clinically in the management of diabetes. Extensive research may lead to discovery of newer and better options for diabetes. With new technologies revolutionizing the treatment possibilities, the search for an effective medication is not far ahead.

Turacoz Healthcare Solutions aims to create awareness for such healthcare issues like diabetes mellitus which pose a serious threat to people, irrespective of race, gender, or age. We consider it our corporate responsibility to share the knowledge related to therapeutic research and development, and keep you updated with the recent medical advancements in the healthcare industry.“Being aware of a disease and its deleterious consequences”is the first-step towards its prevention. So stay healthy and stay long.