Archive for the ‘Tuberculosis’ Category
August 25th, 2010 | 
Author: I know what you are thinking. Whole foods taste kinda bland at first, right? And sweeteners add more calories so what is the point? Your first instinct would be to use something like Sweet & Low, or a similar sweetener that claims to be a healthier alternative to refined sugar. Even though it is not thought of as a food on your plate, it still goes into your body. You need to know how to sweeten your food safely.
Refined white sugar is harmful for any diet simply because it is so devoid of nutritional value of its own, it actually robs your body of nutrients to metabolize it evenly. Just like anything else, a little bit will not hurt too much, but your health will greatly improve with a significant reduction of white sugar in your diets.
How do you sweeten food safely without it being detrimental to your health and weight loss efforts?
Sweeten Food Safely Tip #1: Use Natural Sugars
Nutritionally complex natural sugars such as honey, molasses, and syrup are healthy alternatives to using any kind of sugar or artificial sweetener. Remember, these things come from the earth just like fruits and vegetables, and we all know how good those foods are for us on a daily basis.
Honey is sugar, but since it is natural and unrefined, it contains a host of nutrients and enzymes that have a multitude of beneficial attributes. It will not cause the rapid rise and fall of blood sugar levels as does white sugar, and there are many varieties and flavors to choose from.
Sweeten Food Safely Tip #2: Choose Nature’s Candy
Ever wonder why you do not have to pour sugar over apples, grapes, blueberries, strawberries or raisins? It is because these foods are the candy of the produce department. They can be used as sweeteners in a variety of foods such as soy-based protein shakes, cereal, yogurt and oatmeal.
Just like everything else, unfortunately, our diets are often compromised by our willingness to bring these natural foods down to the American diet level. Dipping fruits into high-fat chocolate and caramel will not help your weight loss. It is no healthier to eat a Raisinet than it is to eat any other candy, despite the claim on the wrapper that is contains antioxidants. Stop falling for these sales gimmicks. Keep your foods natural and your taste buds will eventually revert back to the days before these altered snack foods even existed.
Sweeten Food Safely Tip #3: Limit Artificial Sweeteners
Anything containing aspartame is not a healthy choice for sweetening your food or drinks. Studies show that products containing aspartame can lead to poisoning, seizures, blackouts, headaches, memory loss, blindness, nausea, and gastrointestinal disorders. With even just one of these potential side effects, why risk your health let alone your weight loss efforts?
Just as drinking alcohol will not solve any of your emotional problems, fake sugar will not feed your body’s needs. Your body needs proper nutrition in order to perform at optimum performance, and that includes weight loss. The more you focus on working toward healthy nutrition, the more you will find your cravings for junk foods disappearing.
Even worrying about sweetening your food is not really the kind of mindset you need to live a healthy lifestyle. It is useful when trying to change your eating habits, but your long term goal is getting to the core of the problem by avoiding sweet foods altogether. But if you must sweeten… sweeten food safely! Keep a bowl of fresh ripe fruit nearby at all times to snack to to relieve your sugar cravings.
If you are craving something sweet, do not feel guilty. Over the years the American diet has slowly made us become dependent on sweet treats. The more time rolls on, the sweeter we want our food. This would be alright if becoming overweight was not a side effect, but it is taking its toll on society. Losing weight is about making small changes on a daily basis toward a healthier lifestyle…and for things to change, you have got to change.
With one mass vaccination clinic already under their belt, the Dallas County Health Department is working on different plans for another.
But, those with insurance have started to ask why it’s so hard to find the vaccine. A pregnant Juliana Crownover said she has been on a futile search for H1N1 vaccine.
“I had given up hope,” she said. “I didn’t think it was going to be a possibility, nobody seemed to have it.”
Expectant mothers are at particularly high risk when it comes to swine flu. Yet, practices such as Texas Health Dallas, which serves high-risk, insured patients, don’t have enough vaccine doses for their patients.
Dr. John Bertrand said turning away women trying to protect their unborn babies has been hard.
“And when they can’t get it and they know others are getting it, then it doesn’t seem right and they’ve been frustrated,” he said.
It’s a gap in accessibility that Zachary Thompson, the director for the Dallas County Health Department, acknowledges.
“The insured population who are in the CDC priority group, they’re only penalized for having insurance,” he said.
After countless complaints, the department is taking unprecedented action by working out a deal to share thousands of expected doses with area pharmacies.
“People need to be able to get the vaccine and it should not be based on whether you have insurance or not,” Thompson said.
After abandoning hope of getting the vaccine, Crownover said she finally got an unexpected call Tuesday and rushed to her obstetrician to get the shot.
The next Dallas County mass vaccination clinic will be held November 21 at Antioch Baptist Church in Oak Cliff. Details are still being worked out.
Posted in Tuberculosis | 
Tags: County Health Department, John Bertrand, Priority Group | 
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In 1943, Selman A Waksman found the antibiotic effective against Mycobacterium tuberculosis. Streptomycin purified from streptomyces grieseus was administered to human in 1944.
Drug resistance in TB occurred as a result of tubercle bacillus mutations. Soon the resistant mutants appeared, prooving the antibiotic therapy unsuccessful. Therefore combination of drugs were used to solve the problem of antibiotic resisitance.
Multidrug reisistant tuberculosis– MDR TB is TB that is resisitant to atleast two of the best anti TB drugs, isoniazed and rifamycin which are called first line drugs.
Extensively drug resistant TB is defined as TB which is resistant to isoniazed and rifamycin plus resisitant to any fluoroquinolone and atleast one of three injectable second line drugs(amikacin, kanamycin or capreomycin.
MDR-TB varies from patients to patients.
Antibiotics such as para-aminosalicyclic acid and streptomycin have been in use for more than 50 years.
Patients are required to take upto 15 pills a day, plus daily injections, for atleast six months.
Medical treatment is lengthy and protection through vaccination is today, as before is insufficient.
Every year nearly two million people die from the disease. The bacterium that cause TB are spread in airborne droplets when people with disease cough or sneeze.
TB is considered lung disease however it can attack other parts of body such as kidneys or the brain.
TB is highly contagious and is spread through air.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is resisitant to disinfectants, desiccation and are difficult to stain with water based stain such as Gram.
Infection with tubercle bacillus is characterised by the formation of tubercles, hard nodules in the lungs when Mycobacterium tubercle enters the lungs the macrophages engulf the pathogen but are unable to digest the bacteria due to it’s waxy mycolic acid cell wall.
Mycobacteria begin to multiply within the macrophages, eventually killing the macrophages that protect the host.
The cycle continues as the bacteria released from dead macrophages are then engulfed by other macrophages.
The infected macrophages result in inflammatory response(heat, swelling, dilated capillaries)
The cells at the centre of the tubercle may eventually die, producing either an area of necrosis or an actual cavity.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis can be differentiated from most other mycobacteria by the production of niacin.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is a Gram positive aerobic mycobacterium that divides every 16-20 hours. This is extremely slow as compared to other bacteria which tend to have division times measured in minutes(for example Ecoli can divide roughly every 20 minute.)
Mycobacterium tuberculosis are grown on lowenstein jensen media. Middlebrook media are used for faster culture.
Bacteria can takes weeks to grow on culture media.
The Polymerase chain reaction is the rapid method which provides results within hours from specimen of the patients.
TB refers only to disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
Similar disease ocassionally result from M.bovis,M africanum, M.microti.
TB of tonsils, lymph node, abdominal organs, bones and joints was once commonly caused by ingestion of milk infected with M. bovis but such infection is largely eradicated in developed countries by slaughtering cows that test positive.
Cell wall of Mycobacterium tuberculosis contains peptidoglycan and complex lipids. 60% of the cell wall is lipid. The lipid fraction consisit of mycolic acid, cord factor and wax D.
Mycolic acid are hydrophobic molecules that affect permeability properties at cell surface.
Mycolic acid prevent attack of the Mycobacteria by cationic proteins, lysozyme and oxygen radicals in phagocytic granule.
Cord factor is toxic to mammalian cells.
Lipids cause resistance to many antibiotics and killing by acidic and alkaline compounds and resistance to lethal oxidation and survival inside the macrophages.
Mycolic acid give rigid cell shape to the bacteria.
The type of mycolic acid can be used to distinguish different Mycobacteria.
Mycolic acid isolated from Mycobacteria are called eumycolic acids which have elevated 60-90 carbon atoms.
Mycolic acids are complex hydroxylated branched chain fatty acids with elevated carbon numbers.
They may also contain diverse functional groups such as methoxy, keto, epoxy ester group and cyclopropane ring.
Mycolic acids containing a methoxy group with double bond or cyclopropane ring are known as methoxymycolic acids.
Mycolic acids containing an a methyl-branched ketone are known as ketomycolic acids and those containing an a-methyl-branch epoxide as epoxymycolic acids.