N.M. man has botulism poisoning
Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:43:20 GMTBy MATT MYGATT, Associated Press Writer
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. - A New Mexico man is paralyzed with botulism poisoning and state health officials said Wednesday they are trying to determine if he ate canned food involved in a nationwide recall.
Castleberry's Food Co. has recalled more than 90 potentially contaminated products nationwide — including canned chili, hash and stew — over fears of botulism contamination. The recall includes two years' production — tens of millions of cans — from the company's plant at Augusta, Ga.
The 52-year-old man from New Mexico's Sandoval County, whose name was not released, was hospitalized July 26 and is in serious condition, able to only wiggle his toes, state health officials said.
"We can communicate with him only by him basically moving his toes," said Deborah Busemeyer, New Mexico Department of Health spokesman.
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said a preliminary test showed the man tested positive for botulism, Busemeyer said.
The CDC had said earlier that, as of July 22, four people had been hospitalized because of the contaminated food.
Federal Food and Drug Administration investigators believe Castleberry's failed to properly cook some or all the products involved in the recall, allowing the Clostridium botulinum bacteria to survive the canning process.
___
On the Net:
N.M. Department of Health: http://www.health.state.nm.us/
FDA: http://www.fda.gov/
CDC: http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/diseaseinfo/botulism_g.htm
Brain electrodes help man speak again
Wed, 01 Aug 2007 18:53:10 GMTBy MALCOLM RITTER, AP Science Writer
NEW YORK - He was beaten and left for dead one night in a robbery while walking home in 1999. His skull was crushed and his brain severely damaged. The doctor said if he pulled through at all, he'd be a vegetable for the rest of his life.
For six years, the man could not speak or eat.
On occasion he showed signs of awareness, and he moved his eyes or a thumb to communicate. His arms were useless. He was fed through a tube.
But researchers chose him for an experimental attempt to rev up his brain by placing electrodes in it. And here's how his mother describes the change in her son, now 38:
"My son can now eat, speak, watch a movie without falling asleep," she said Wednesday while choking back tears during a telephone news conference. "He can drink from a cup. He can express pain. He can cry and he can laugh.
"The most important part is he can say, `Mommy' and `Pop.' He can say, `I love you, Mommy' ... I still cry every time I see my son, but it's tears of joy."
The progress of the patient, who remains unidentified at the family's request, is described more formally in a report in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
Experts called the results encouraging but cautioned that the experimental treatment must be tried in more patients before its value can be assessed. The researchers are already proceeding with a larger study.
Before the electrodes were implanted, the man was in what doctors call a "minimally conscious state." That means he showed only occasional awareness of himself and his environment. In a coma or vegetative state, by contrast, patients show no outward signs of awareness.
There are no reliable statistics on how many Americans are in a minimally conscious state, but one estimate suggests 112,000 to 280,000. Doctors may try medications to improve their condition but no drugs have been firmly established as helpful.
The experimental treatment is called deep brain stimulation. It has been used for years in treating Parkinson's disease, although in this case the electrodes were implanted in slightly different places. The goal of the stimulation was to provide "drive" to areas of the brain that are critical for specific skills like speaking.
Similar stories of partial recovery from brain damage occasionally grab headlines, whether the improvement came from treatment or just out of the blue.
Terry Wallis of Arkansas lingered in a minimally conscious state for almost 20 years before he suddenly regained some ability to speak and move in 2003. In 2005, a former firefighter in Buffalo, N.Y., turned from being barely aware and almost mute for nearly a decade into a virtual chatterbox for 14 hours. His doctor had been trying a cocktail of drugs.
The man described in the Nature paper, despite his improvements, remains severely disabled in a rehabilitation facility for brain injury on the East Coast. .
He can't walk. While he has regained the ability to chew and swallow, he must be spoon-fed. He can demonstrate the motion of brushing his teeth, for example, but he can't actually do it. That's because tendons in his arms contracted after years of immobility, said study lead author Dr. Nicholas Schiff of Weill Cornell Medical College in New York.
The man doesn't initiate conversation but can reply to others, generally with one to three words, said Dr. Joseph Giacino, a co-lead author of the Nature study.
Several weeks ago, he recited the first half of the Pledge of Allegiance without assistance, said Giacino, of the JFK Johnson Rehabilitation Institute in Edison, N.J.
The man's electrodes are left on for 12 hours a day. He has continued to improve since the experiment formally ended in February 2006, the doctors said.
After the research was over, doctors started giving him the drug amantadine, which has shown some potential for treating people in a minimally conscious state. It's not clear whether amantadine can boost the effects of deep brain stimulation or vice versa, Giacino said.
Dr. James Bernat, a professor of neurology at Dartmouth Medical School who didn't participate in the new research, called the Nature report exciting and important. Further study is needed to sort out how many patients would respond and how to identify the minimally conscious patients with the best chance of being helped, he said.
He noted that a similar treatment did not help Terri Schiavo, the Florida woman in a vegetative state whose care triggered national controversy before her death in 2005. That's the typical outcome for electrical brain stimulation in vegetative states, he said.
Dr. Ross Zafonte of the University of Pittsburgh, who also was familiar with the study results, agreed that "we need to know more." He said the approach is "very interesting and holds great promise."
___
On the Net:
http://www.nature.com/nature
1 joint equals up to 5 cigarettes
Wed, 01 Aug 2007 03:00:27 GMTBy RAY LILLEY, Associated Press Writer
WELLINGTON, New Zealand - A single joint of marijuana obstructs the flow of air as much as smoking up to five tobacco cigarettes, but long-term pot use does not increase the risk of developing emphysema, new research suggests.
The study by New Zealand's Medical Research Institute found that longtime pot smokers can develop symptoms of asthma and bronchitis, along with obstruction of the large airways and excessive lung inflation. The paper was released Tuesday ahead of its publication in the journal Thorax.
"The study shows that one cannabis joint causes a similar degree of lung damage as between 2.5 and five tobacco cigarettes," said lead author Sarah Aldington.
However, the researchers found that the progressive chronic lung disease emphysema, often associated with cigarette smoking, was uncommon among marijuana smokers. Only 1.3 percent of the long-term pot smokers were found to have signs of the disease compared to 16.3 percent of those who combined marijuana and tobacco, and 18.9 percent of those who only smoked tobacco.
Marijuana smokers had symptoms that included wheezing, coughing, chest tightness and phlegm — all of which were associated with tobacco smokers, except chest tightness.
The study, which used lung function tests, high-resolution X-rays and questionnaires, also revealed that among marijuana smokers damage occurred to the small, fine airways which are important for taking in oxygen and removing waste gases. The extent of damage rose in proportion to the number of joints smoked.
Last week, another study published in The Lancet medical journal suggested that using marijuana may increase the likelihood of becoming psychotic, with even infrequent use potentially raising the overall small risk by up to 40 percent.
The three-year Thorax study involved 339 people in New Zealand, where pot smoking is fairly common. An estimated 160 million people use marijuana worldwide.
Participants were recruited into four groups based on smoking habits — nonsmokers, tobacco-only smokers, tobacco and marijuana smokers, and marijuana-only smokers.
To qualify as a long-term marijuana user, participants had to have smoked a minimum of one joint a day for five years, said institute director Richard Beasley, who also participated in the study. Tobacco users had to have smoked a pack a day for one year.
Earlier studies have shown that smoking one joint results in three to five times more carbon monoxide and tar inhaled than smoking a cigarette of the same size. The New Zealand research also showed that the "products of combustion" in marijuana are very similar to tobacco, Beasley said.
Part of the reason for this is the way joints are smoked, with users often inhaling and holding the smoke in longer for a better hit. Marijuana joints typically do not have filters and they have shorter butts than cigarettes with a higher smoke temperature. Pot also is commonly smoked through various types of pipes.
Jeff Garrett, president of the Australia-New Zealand Thoracic Society, who was not involved in the study, said that although researchers found emphysema among marijuana smokers relatively rare, he emphasized that it does occur.
Hospital specialists also are seeing an increasing number of people with emphysema specifically related to marijuana smoking, he said.
____
Associated Press Medical Writer Margie Mason contributed to this report from Hanoi, Vietnam.
Dietary carbs linked to vision loss
Tue, 31 Jul 2007 00:31:12 GMTNEW YORK - The carbohydrates present in a diet can influence the risk of age-related macular degeneration , the most common cause of vision loss in older adults, according to a report in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
&;AMD appears to share several carbohydrate-related mechanisms and risk factors with diabetes-related diseases, including and cardiovascular disease,&; write Dr. Allen Taylor, of Tufts University, Boston, and colleagues. &;However, to date, only one small study has addressed this issue.&;
To investigate further, the researchers conducted a study of 4,099 participants, aged 55 to 80 years, in the Age-Related Eye Disease Study.
The team classified a total of 8,125 eyes into one of five AMD groups based on the severity of the disease and other factors.
Regular consumption of a diet with a high-glycemic index - a diet containing carbs that quickly raise blood sugar levels -- significantly increased the risk of AMD relative to regular consumption of a diet with a low-glycemic index.
The researchers calculate that 20 percent of AMD cases could have been prevented if subjects had consumed diets with a low-glycemic index.
SOURCE: American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, July 2007.
