Breakthroughs Today

Another potential superbug make headlines as it has  been blamed for deaths of infected infant. And it is something that parents should take note especially when they are using milk formula. LAST year (Dec. 22), Daniel J. DeNoon of the WebMD Health News reported of an infant in Lebanon, Missouri who died of Cronobacter infection. Cronobacter is a newly recognized genus, comprising Gram-negative, rod-shaped, and disease-causing bacteria. The family bought 12.5-ounce cans of Enfamil Newborn from a local Walmart, with lot number ZP1K7G. (The infant formula is currently being tested, and not yet proven the source of the child’s infection. But its maker Mead Johnson graciously pulled it off out of caution.) The culprit in infant infections like this has been a species called Cronobacter sakasakii. It is often detected in plant material, such as wheat (a base ingredient in many infant formula), rice, herbs and spices. In short, it is abundant in the environment. Take note

Sleep is a natural recharger of physical and mental energies that is available to human beings even if some would prefer to ignore this God-given gift for whatever reason. A few still would have wanted to sleep sound like a baby who have forgotten their midnight crying routine, and cannot do so no matter what they do. Again, science tries to look for a solution, and somehow recently found one. And yet like many scientific solutions, a "cure" can be as easily considered a vector of a disease or disorder on account of their side effects alone. Here's a recent one on the matter. SPANISH author Leon de Rotrou wrote in his work Vencelas: “What I take from my nights, I add to my days.” But what happens when night takes from your days, and adds it to your nights? The United States Food and Drug Administration approved on Nov. 23 2011 a new sleeping pill called Intermezzo to help middle-of-the-night insomniacs to get back to sleep. Transcept Pharmaceuticals desig

At times the a combination of three powerful drugs can result to unexpected and dangerous predicaments. And if you factor that potency into sex, some scientific stories can be worth reading. THE case I am bringing up today may be considered a sort of “X-File” in the field of medical therapeutics. Six researchers, led by Javaad Zargooshi, from the Rhazes Center for Research in Family Health and Sexual Medicine of Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences (Kermanshah, Iran) reported early this year in The Journal of Sexual Medicine (Jan. 3) a case of drug-induced rupture (lesion) of the glans (helmet-like structure in the penis) after sexual intercourse with his wife who used a vaginal cream containing triple-sulfa antibiotic. A triple-sulfa drug is a combination of three different antibiotics—sulfathiazole, sulfacetamide, and sulfabenzamide. They confirmed that this case of a 42-year-old male represented the fourth case they have encountered. “To our knowledge, this i

If you can celebrate Valentine's Day with one honey, why not with two? And we are not suggesting bigamy here. FEBRUARY, let’s accept it, is the month of Love. Thanks to the ever-enduring popular and commercial success of Saint Valentine’s Day on the 14th. But there is something sweeter in honey than just the kiss. Honey is considered as the sweetest natural substance to-date. It developed from the combination of nectar and sweet deposits from plants, which get modified and stored in a honeycomb. Expectedly, its major components are basic sugars such as fructose (fruit sugar) and glucose (table sugar). But not very long ago, a group of substances had been identified comprising 20-25 percent of honey. These are the caffeic acid ester derivates. A study in 2009 described a wide range of activities from these substances including the stopping or protection against tumor. They caused colon cancer cells to burst into destruction, frustrating the mechanism that enabled canc

A hardy type of microorganisms are feasting on the havoc that Sendong created in the lives of people in Cagayan De Oro City and Iligan City. It rubs the misfortune with more sorrow and pain. Still people had to survive it. THE devastation that Tropical Storm Sendong left behind brought an outbreak of Leptospirosis in the affected cities in Mindanao. Not satisfied with the enormous loss of lives and properties to the victims, nature inflicted upon them a disease that makes their already-difficult situation more problematic with their bodies now compromised. The shaking chills it brings seem to keep the people in the nightmare of the cold floodwaters as they struggled to survive for hours in the dark. Leptospirosis is a rare bacterial infection (0.2 cases per 100,000 populations in temperate areas). But in tropical countries like ours a maximum of 100 cases per 100,000 people is possible. The disease is not confined to humans though. It too affects animals, birds, amphibia